Film project a creative light for Indigenous youth
MONTREAL— A few weeks ago Katherine Nequado was quite sure that she wanted to become a nurse.
That was before the 17-year-old wandered into a downtown community centre for Indigenous people, to sign up for a month-long filmmaking program that is focused on giving a voice to young First Nations people.
Having caught the big-screen bug, she is suddenly rethinking her future.
The goal of the Montreal-based Wapikoni Mobile program, which has worked almost exclusively with Quebec’s Indigenous communities since its founding in 2004, is not to turn out a generation of First Nations filmmakers. It has, however, produced several young talents, sent films to the Sundance and Cannes festivals and even won a number of short-film prizes.
Rather, Wapikoni seeks to give young people a project to complete, a skill to master and an outlet to express themselves.
For the first time this year, the program is being expanded across the country and will have visited more than 20 communities between British Columbia and Nova Scotia by year’s end, including the Ojibway First Nations of Fort William and Wikwemikong in northern Ontario.
Some participants quite clearly have something to say about racism, the social ills of suicide and addiction, or the cultural traditions that communities are fighting to keep alive so that they might be passed on to future generations.
Other young people are excited by the medium and the opportunity, but have to search for the message. Nequado, who is from the Atikamekw Nation of Manawan, but has been living off reserve in TroisRivières and Montreal for the last two years, fell into this latter category.
“I had a lot of ideas, but they were all mixed up,” she said during a break from translating the narration of her short film, The Apple, from French into her mother tongue.
She was interested in the idea of body painting. The filmmakermentors running the program helped to flesh out her own experi- ence and they ended up talking about the stigma around her decision to live off-reserve. Jemmy Echaquan Dubé, a filmmaking assistant who is also from Manawan, mentioned the derogatory term “apples” given to those who leave: Their flesh is red, but underneath is white.
“My friends said that I’d abandoned them and, when I went back to visit, there were members of my family who teased me, saying I was a Montrealer,” Nequado said.
The resulting short film is a powerful piece that shows Nequado rubbing off the red paint and rejecting the judgment of others.
“The basis of the project always comes from the participant. We just guide them,” said Patricia Chica, a film and TV director who assisted Nequado with the filming and editing.
“It’s always about pushing their thinking further. What is the message? What is the subtext? Where do you want to go with this?”
George Lenser, a chef and Concordia University student from the Wet’suwe’ten First Nation near Terrace, B.C., wanted to hunt a duck and cook it over an open fire for his documentary. He had to settle for fishing at the Akwesasne Mohawk community near Cornwall, Ont., but the result was an evocative film touching on food, family and holding on to tradition.
“I feel like this will really further benefit my career and even bring pride to my family and showcase what I’ve been doing since I’ve been gone from B.C.,” he said.
Once the converted recreational vehicle that serves as Wapikoni’s mobile studio arrives in a remote community, the benefit can be as simple as a month of structured activity in a place where days are long and there is little for young people to do.
Other times, the Wapikoni mentors have arrived at a reserve in the throes of an addiction or suicide crisis as part of more structured intervention designed to save lives.
“We have cases with young participants who are at the lowest of the low in their lives,” Chica said.
“This really raises them up and at least gives them a little space for four to five weeks to come and express themselves, and forget about their struggles and gain the confidence to speak up because sometimes they just keep it inside.”
One of Wapikoni’s big successes is Érik Papatie, a filmmaker from the Anishnabe nation of Lac Simon, east of Val-d’Or, Que., who was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and raised in foster care.
His four short films all feature his mania for discarded and recycled electronics, and have been celebrated for their originality and humour. One of them won a film festival prize in 2011.
But perhaps more important, said Wapikoni spokesperson Virginie Michel, is that they have also helped the community understand and appreciate him as more than just an oddball or eccentric.
“People discovered him through the films,” she said. “He’s now a notable figure in the community.”
Another success is Raymond Caplin, a member of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation in Quebec’s Gaspé region. Caplin’s first experience with Wapikoni was in 2012 as a teenage dropout with a talent for drawing. He has since produced four animated shorts and is now studying animation at Concordia University.
At the end of each Wapikoni workshop, participants receive a paper diploma. It’s symbolic, but meant to instill the sense of accomplishment, Michel said.
“For some, it may be the only diploma they earn. For others, it may be the first one in their lives.” En Scène is a monthly column on Quebec culture. Email: awoods@thestar.ca.