In-person, online featuring of 16 Indigenous, Northern films in 2023 ALFF by NFB Canada

NFB. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

CMEDIA: Creators of 16 films by National Film Board of Canada (NFB) are being featured in the 2023 Available Light Film Festival (ALFF) in Whitehorse from February 9 through 19 — including a powerful selection of new and classic Indigenous and Northern works.

Yukon premieres

Ever Deadly by Tanya Tagaq and Chelsea McMullan, winner of the Audience Choice for Best Canadian Documentary Feature at the Yellowknife International Film Festival features stories and songs with pain, anger and triumph though the expressions of Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq, one of the most innovative musical performers of our time filmed on location in Nunavut.

Unarchived by Hayley Gray and Elad Tzadok explore community archives across British Columbia, where local Knowledge Keepers are hand-fashioning a more inclusive history through family photos, newspaper articles and scratchy old VHS tapes — people building connection through work, play, protest, family and tradition.

Northern feature documentary

• Voices Across the Water by Fritz Mueller follows two master boat builders as they practise their art and find a way back to balance and healing. For Alaskan Tlingit carver Wayne Price, fashioning a dugout canoe from a single massive red cedar tree is a way to reconnect to the Ancestral Knowledge of Indigenous craftspeople. Francophone artist Halin de Repentigny hand-makes birchbark canoes, harvesting raw materials from the Yukon forest.

Virtual reality works

• This Is Not A Ceremony by Niitsitapi writer and director Ahnahktsipiitaa (Colin Van Loon) takes us beyond the veil of traditional media and transports us directly into another realm, where past, present and future are one; where colonial rules and assumptions are forgotten; and where we can finally get to the truth of the matter.
• ALFF Redux — 25th Anniversary presentation
• Picturing a People: George Johnston, Tlingit Photographer by Carol Geddes presents a unique portrait of George Johnston, a photographer who was himself a creator of portraits and a keeper of his culture. Johnston cared deeply about the traditions of the Tlingit People, and he…