Historical Mariposa pictures hang at Orillia museum
Historical Mariposa pictures hang at the Orillia Museum of Art & History until Sept. 27.
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CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
Indigenous-led projects are landing hits and winning awards. How are they making inroads?
Cody Lightning is far from alone. First of all, the Edmonton-based creator is surrounded by fellow community members on the set of Smudge the Blades, his upcoming film about hockey, growing up and Indigenous identity. But he's also part of a wave of new Indigenous talent — a raft of creators crafting a host of projects that, Lightning said, is unlike anything he's seen in his 30 years in the industry. "Throughout my adolescent years and teenage years, it was roles that I auditioned for, that were presented to me. And I adapted to that — to someone else's story," he said. "There was, like, one project per year that everyone knew about — everyone was trying to be on those projects. And now we're making our own." Alongside his upcoming film, there are projects running the gamut — from Reservation Dogs, the series about four Indigenous teenagers in Oklahoma that aired for three seasons on FX, to Rutherford Falls, the Michael Greyeyes-starring comedy written by Indigenous comedian Jana Schmieding. And then there are this year's Canadian Screen Awards-nominated titles North of North, Don't Even and Bones of Crows. Those projects are paired with Indigenous talent stepping in front of the camera, from Season 4 of True Detective, to Indigenous stars in series Dark Winds, American Primeval and Alaska Daily. Perhaps most notable is Lily Gladstone, who became the first Indigenous woman to be nominated for a best actress Academy Award — and the first to win a Golden Globe — for her turn in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. As to why we're seeing the swell now, Indigenous filmmaker and actor Jennifer Podemski said there are multiple reasons. The first could be historically laid groundwork. As Podemski has spoken about in the past, Indigenous-led productions often included mentorship programs, designed to train up-and-coming Indigenous creators to be ready to launch their own careers. That, she said, has paired with a shifted lens from decision-makers. Specifically, after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, studios changed how they looked for talent. WATCH | Filmmaker and actor Jennifer Podemski on Indigenous resilience: Filmmaker/Actor Jennifer Podemski on Indigenous resilience 7 months ago Duration 1:46 Filmmaker and veteran actor Jennifer Podemski sat down with Tom Power to discuss her new series, Little Bird, how the story resonates with her own family history and making a production company that tells Indigenous stories with authenticity. "When people are casting for movies, they're more inclined to question ... 'Am I on the right side of history here, or am I perpetuating harmful narratives?'" Podemski said of the shift following Floyd's murder. "People became a little bit more aware of the steps that they were taking, and that's why we were seeing more Indigenous people on screen, maybe, where we wouldn't otherwise have seen them." Centralized source of funding As for the shift behind the camera and north of the border, Podemski credits that more to executive changes — specifically to the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO), which was created in 2017-18. While it began as an advocacy group, in 2021, the ISO began receiving federal funding earmarked for distribution to any Indigenous-led production headed to the screen. Kristy Assu, its director of funding programs, said that outreach has been furthered now that the ISO receives permanent government funding — including about $65 million to be distributed over the next five years. And starting this year, the ISO will administer the Canadian Media Fund's Indigenous Program, which allocates roughly $10 million annually to Indigenous-led productions. That sets up the ISO as a centralized source of funding for Indigenous creators in Canada, which has never happened before, Assu said. As a filmmaker herself, she said the change helps to break down systemic obstacles in the industry: While the Canadian Media Fund's Indigenous Program existed previously, there was "very little to access" — even more so for emerging, unestablished filmmakers, she said. "I think that's why we're seeing this huge surge in [Indigenous] filmmakers," Assu said. "Because there's access to funding now, there's support. People can make a living on being a creative in this industry." As well, with Indigenous people allocating the funding themselves, rather than through an intermediary organization, a more central issue emerges: narrative sovereignty. The term refers to a group able to choose how it's represented — and in a larger sense determine how it's perceived by society at large. That has been an especially entrenched issue in this country; the very concept and word "documentary" was first coined by National Film Board of Canada founder John Grierson in his review of American filmmaker Robert Flaherty's 1926 movie Moana. Both that film and his earlier Inuit-focused Nanook of the North — widely considered to be the first commercially successful documentary — used Indigenous people as their subjects. Particularly in Nanook, Flaherty's work has come under increasing scrutiny for staged scenes and general inaccuracies, with its widespread success continuing to reinforce romanticized and stereotypical aspects of a people who were unable to establish their own identity through film. 'Cost of carelessness' "Because of filmmakers like Flaherty, we've seen the damage wrought by policies built on visual misrepresentation, salvage ethnography, and the lines of ownership that become purposefully blurred by others extracting our own images," Indigenous filmmaker Adam Piron wrote for the International Documentary Association about Nanook. "For Indigenous artists, there's an added weight to engaging with the moving image because we know the cost of carelessness." An entrenched and inaccurate depiction of Indigenous people and their stories, Lightning said, led to decades of period pieces he described as "leathers and feathers" — productions that utilized pop culture ideas of various Indigenous groups, while barring those people from input into how their stories should actually be told. At the same time, there has been consistent pushback, such as Toronto-born Indigenous actor D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, who starred in Reservation Dogs, attending the 2024 Emmy Awards with a red handprint on his face. The makeup was intended to bring attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women, and, according to the organization Native Hope, "the silence of the media and law enforcement in the midst of this crisis." Lightning said that rebellious streak has only increased in recent years. "I want our younger generations in this industry to push boundaries, make people feel a little uncomfortable at times," he said. "That's good. I'm looking forward to that. Those are the filmmakers I wanna see." And while territorial sovereignty — the ability to decide on laws within proscribed borders — is a topic often touched on for Indigenous people in Canada, Podemski said the right and ability to control how, and which, stories are told about them is also of huge importance. As an example, she told the story of how just the day before, a passport agent made an offhand complaint about her getting "stuff for free" after seeing her Indigenous status card — a discriminatory response that a 2022 study by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs found 99 per cent of Indigenous respondents had experienced. The team behind North of North on making TV magic in the Canadian Arctic 5 months ago Duration 2:49 Actor Anna Lambe and the co-creators of the new CBC co-production North of North talk to the CBC's Eli Glasner about how the Iqaluit community came together to bring the heartwarming comedy to life. Podemski said she spent the next 20 minutes speaking about that stereotype to the agent, who said apologetically that she simply hadn't heard the historical context before. "Afterwards I thought, 'You know what? This is why I do what I do,'" Podemski said. "Because if we take up space on the screen, and if we help people to understand a little bit more about who we are in our own communities and in our own experiences, then maybe they won't write us off as easily as they do."
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
Pedestrian Sunday is back in Kensington this weekend, but future of festival remains unclear
Kensington Market's popular Pedestrian Sunday festival is back this month, but its future for the rest of the season remains unclear as organizers look for solutions on safety concerns and the problem of illegal vendors. The festival has been running for more than two decades on the last Sunday of each month from May to October, when much of the market is closed to vehicles while pedestrians, vendors, and street artists fill the streets. It was halted last-minute in May after concerns over the influx of outside vendors and "unregulated food sales and unauthorized substances," the Kensington Market Business Improvement Area (KMBIA) said when announcing the cancellation. KMBIA chair Mike Shepherd says he feels comfortable holding the June 29 event because he believes outside vendors will be spread out across the city due to Pride Festival events and won't necessarily converge on Kensington. And as for July onward, "We'll see how it goes," he said. Kensington considers hiring outside help For now, the KMBIA is exploring options to help the event run more smoothly in the future. Among them is finding new organizers to run it for them. Shepherd says KMBIA is currently in talks with the team behind Do West Fest, adding it has had "really good success at dealing with these same problems." "[The] biggest thing…is what their cost is going to be to us," he said, referring to Uma Nota Culture, the not-for-profit that produced the festival for the Little Portugal Toronto BIA. The organization confirmed to CBC Toronto they had a conversation about potentially producing the event and are thrilled about the opportunity. The KMBIA increased its events and festival budget by 18 per cent this year, city records show. Each Pedestrian Sunday costs about $10,000 and May's unused budget will go into reserves, Shepherd says. The KMBIA also released a community survey on Monday asking residents and businesses for their thoughts on possible solutions such as having police on the streets, more security, or changing the festival's frequency. The results are still trickling in — and while some businesses told CBC Toronto the festival is a financial lifeline, others welcomed last month's pause. Jessica Silva of CrazyLoko Vintage says she loses roughly half her customers to illegal vendors who set up shop in front of her business selling other vintage clothes during the festival. "They're taking away from our business [while] we're here the entire year trying to make ends meet," she said. 'Only so many officers trying to do too big a job' Though there will be four extra security guards at Sunday's event, Shepherd says it's been a challenge to bring in more bylaw officers to crack down on illegal vendors. He says attempts to hire the officers through the city have been unsuccessful — something the city couldn't comment on without more specifics from the KMBIA. Illegal vendors selling things like unregulated food or art can be fined by bylaw officers, according to the city's communications coordinator, Shane Gerard. But if they sell drugs, he says the issue becomes a police matter. The most common violation related to sidewalk vendors is vending without a permit, which carries a $615 fine, Gerard says. This year, Shepherd hopes June's Pedestrian Sunday will give him the chance to have conversations with the illegal vendors and deal with them "in a nice way," before escalating things further. WATCH | Why was Pedestrian Sunday paused in the first place?: Toronto's Kensington market pauses 'Pedestrian Sundays' amid vendor battle 1 month ago Duration 2:28 'Pedestrian Sundays,' a popular tradition at Toronto's Kensington Market, has been put on pause for the first time in twenty years. As CBC's Britnei Bilhete reports, organizers say there's been growing concerns about the event. Local councillor Dianne Saxe says she's repeatedly asked the mayor's office for help with drug use and sales in the area and helped connect Shepherd with city staff to request more bylaw officers. "There's only so many officers trying to do too big a job," Saxe said. CBC Toronto has reached out to the mayor's office but did not hear back before deadline. The entire ward of University-Rosedale currently has two bylaw officers assigned.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
All aboard… for chills
Linwood Barclay, the U.S.-born, Ontario-based author of many bestselling thrillers and mystery novels, tries his hand at a supernatural thriller oozing with homages to Stephen King in Whistle. Annie Blunt, a bestselling children's book author, is suffering from a traumatic pair of events. Inspired by her popular picture book character Pierce the Penguin, a young boy tries to fly using cardboard wings and plummets to his death. While Annie struggles with feeling responsible for this tragedy, her husband is killed in a hit-and-run car accident. At the behest of her editor, Annie and her young son Charlie retreat to a rented mansion in upstate New York to try and recover some sense of normalcy. The quiet, slow pace of country life seems to be working until Charlie comes across an old model train set. Daniel Crump / Free Press files After setting it up and obsessively running the toy along its track, a number of strange events begin to unfold. And veering away from the cuddly Pierce, Annie's new idea for a character is much darker and more sinister than anything she's attempted before. There's a second storyline woven into the pages of Whistle, one that follows Harry Cook, the chief of police in the small town of Lucknow, Vt. and taking place not long after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Beginning with the mysterious disappearances of two men, a number of odd accidents befall the town, all seeming to somehow connect with the new specialty shop Choo-Choo's Trains and its eccentric owner Edwin Nabler. Fans of Stephen King will likely see a parallel to the 1991 novel Needful Things. Barclay is not shy about how much King has influenced this particular novel, and he includes a number of nods to other King titles including Christine, It and Maximum Overdrive. As well as drawing heavily on Needful Things and its villain Leland Gaunt, Whistle's villain also bears some resemblance to Andre Linoge, the creepy and mysterious bad guy of the 1999 made-for-TV miniseries Storm of the Century, also penned by King. Barclay is clearly a fan and makes no secret of the various influences which have inspired his foray away from thrillers and into supernatural chiller territory. Given that Barclay is playing (at least partially) with a less-modern setting, he might have been better suited to push the timeline back even further, to when model trains were actually popular. There are a couple of half-hearted snipes at video games and other modern toys compared to the precision and uniqueness of the trains, but it seems a stretch that these characters would have taken the slightest interest in this hobby without the supernatural persuasion of Edwin Nabler. Ellis Parinder photo Linwood Barclay And while the titular spooky shop called Needful Things catered to the many tastes of the town residents, Choo-Choo's Trains feels a little too niche for its influence to spread through the whole town. Billed as a spooky chiller, Whistle certainly has elements of horror, but doesn't really evoke many scares. For fans of Barclay's previous oeuvre and other mysteries, this is probably just enough spookiness to remain enjoyable, whereas devoted horror fans may find this one a touch too cozy. And while Barclay uses the split narrative akin to It, breaking the narrative into two branches does cut the tension. In Whistle readers' connection to Annie and Charlie builds, when the narrative suddenly breaks and introduces a whole slew of new characters in Harry's storyline. And because the reader knows Harry's plot takes place 20-some-odd years before Annie's, it can be difficult to invest in that plot. The two plot threads eventually do come together, though it does seem a little forced and relies heavily on coincidence. But like many King novels, Whistle works best when not taken too seriously and simply enjoyed as a thrill ride. A breezy and fun read, Whistle will appeal to fans of vintage Stephen King, particularly the stories set in the Castle Rock region. It doesn't reinvent the formula or introduce anything new, but it might just scratch that particular itch for the type of story King doesn't seem to be as interested in producing anymore. Whistle Keith Cadieux is a Winnipeg writer and editor. His latest story collection, Donner Parties and Other Anti-Social Gatherings, is out now from At Bay Press. He also co-edited the horror anthology What Draws Us Near, published by Little Ghosts Books.
