Calgary’s Indigenous Film Festival

Parts of the Indigenous culture and ceremonies have been lost too time and assimilation; a resent film festival showed the different struggles of Indigenous Nations.

Indigenous ceremonies in Alberta have been forgotten due to assimilation through residential schools and criminalizing their culture.

One way the Indigenous Nations are reviving their culture are through art and film festivals. One was recently held on Nov. 23, 2019, featuring many different films showing and describing Indigenous culture in many different forms.

Doreen Spence, a Canadian Indigenous rights activist born in the Cree Nation of Northern Alberta, spent over two decades with the United Nations for human rights.

“I've always been an activist, right from when I was little,” said Spence. “The fight for your own culture, for your own identity for just being you. We were not allowed to get an education beyond grade three when I was coming through.”

Spence was part of one of the films called Kohkum & the Quest that was played during the film festival. Where she led her daughter through a Vison Quest.

“In your days when we were reaching womanhood, there was a ceremony when they put you out into a lodge or put you out for sacred purposes to be able to connect to the land,” said Spence.

“With the young boys, they put them out for vision quests and have them there for four days, and four nights with no food or water. You get clarity, you get focused, you get spiritually fed. You get care visions in terms of your own sacred path.”

Berkley Brady is the films director of Kohkum & the Quest. She talks about the importance of listening and seeing Indigenous ceremonies and cultures, to further understand what has been lost and taken from them.

“I really wanted to just hear more about what Doreen had to say and spend more time with her. I think, especially in the documentary, it's a way you can just learn and be part of something you enjoy,” said Brady.

Larry Gauthier talks about why some want parts of their heritage be kept a secret and hidden to others, and the history behind why some of their ceremonies have been lost.

“Their goal was to Christianize Indians, so they use the churches to Christianize because there were three goals. Christianize, civilized and assimilate,” said Gauthier.

“The churches did a good job of converting Indians and so we lost that spiritual belief system. It had to go underground, and so those traditionalists that went underground maintain those values and belief systems and that culture.”

Other Indigenous Nations have different words for ceremonies and ways of preforming them. Depending on the Chiefs of that Nation some are able to view the ceremonies, while others wish for them to be kept private within that Nation.

Through art shows and film festivals like We Don't Have Time to Feel These Feelings: An Indigenous Film Screening to help others further understand Indigenous culture and the fight they have had to overcome for their own identities.