SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS JUNE 30th, 2012

via CBC – Manitoba Scene

The 10th anniversary of the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival kicked off on November 16th.

Part of the festival involves a program called Building Bridges. It’s part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Commemoration Initiative and deals with the impact residential schools have played on many generations.

A special screening of sixteen youth videos is planned for Friday, November 18th. These young Aboriginals were mentored earlier this year as part of the project Our Stories Our Identities.

Fifteen year old Josh Kennedy is one of the youths. His music video is called Screw the Drugs.

SCENE asked Josh about his experience:

Your music video has a strong title. Why did you choose it?
Because I feel very strongly about seeing all my friends being impacted by drugs and alcohol. And it really affects me, seeing them.

How have drugs and substance abuse impacted you and your family?
My family, they drank a lot from being in residential school. What happened was, my grandma was desensitized and didn’t know how to properly bond with her sons and daughters.

My mom felt like my grandma hated her, but she really didn’t. So my mother drank when she was a teenager and it affected us, too. She was too much of a young mom and had no parental experience so she was forced to give us up to CFS. And then we went to our grandma for five years.
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You’re back together now with your immediate family. Are things better now?
Yes. She made the right choices and got her kids back. I feel like a missing piece of the puzzle has been pushed in.

What was the experience like, working with a mentor in the “Our Stories Our Identities” program?
It was beautiful. It was awesome. Coleen (Rajotte) is like another auntie. It was really fun. I really enjoyed it. We learned a lot about editing and how light changes things.

What message do you want to send with your music video?
Don’t do drugs at all, man!

How did making it help you deal with your past? How did it make you feel?
It helped me, spiritually. It made me feel accomplished and worthy. It helps me be determined, like “yes” I already made a video so maybe I can make more.

Josh Kennedy’s music video, along with 15 other films will be presented on Friday, Nov. 18th as part of Building Bridges in the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival. The screenings take place during the day starting at 9:00 at the Asper Centre for Theatre and Film at the University of Winnipeg.

Don Burnstick is a Cree from the Alexander First Nation located outside of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The youngest of 15 children, coupled with the fact of growing up on the reserve, taught Don a variety of means of defending himself, not the least of which became his use of humour.
Don’s young life was very violent. “I lived on the streets of Edmonton as an alcoholic and drug addict. In 1985, when I sobered up at 21, there were not too many 21 year old males that were alcohol and drug free so I just started asking to go and tell my story.”
Burnstick obtained post secondary training at the University of San Diego in holistic urban youth development. He also has obtained certification as an Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor and graduated from the Native Trainers Development program at the Nechi Institute in Edmonton.
Don has now been involved within the healing/personal wellness movement for the past 20 years and has utilized humour and performance to provide a holistic approach to healing. His message speaks to a proud heritage, the importance of healing through humor and his continuing desire to leave a better world for our future generations. Don wrote and individually performs the play “I Am Alcohol – Healing the Wounded Warrior”. In this play, without preaching or moralizing, Don presents a gripping dramatization of the addictive power of alcohol and drugs, and the connections to other destructive forces that have plagued the Aboriginal community.
In addition to his healing work, Don has established himself as one of Canada’s best comedian of all times. His highly acclaimed comedy show “You Might be a Redskin – Healing Through Native Humour”, is a comedic performance, that humorously portrays First Nations people, their habits, likes and dislikes.

Rod Carleton was a CBC Manitoba TV reporter for almost a decade and later went on to work at TRC as a communications officer. Rod’s wife Sue McBride will be in attendance for this special tribute to his life and work.

Bran Nue Dae is a charming new Australian-based, music-driven road movie/romantic comedy starring Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush that literally bursts onto the screen with unbridled energy and fun. Loosely based on one of Australia’s most beloved and popular musicals, Bran Nue Dae is a foot stomping tour-de-force centring on the romantic adventures of a young aboriginal couple set against the spectacularly beautiful Australia.

Manitoba Premiere

Karen is a beautiful young woman with a dark past. Fresh out of prison, she finds herself on the streets with a burning desire to turn her life around but no one to call for help. Eventually she finds a haven at a shelter for Aboriginal women like herself. With the support of her new community of friends, Karen begins the painful journey of reconnecting with her estranged mother and her young daughter, and she is soon propelled to face the most difficult truths of her life. Along with the creative team behind Samson & Delilah (including producer Kath Shelper and cinematographer Warwick Thornton) director Beck Cole (First Australians) has marked out a place as one of the most important young filmmakers in Australian cinema. Set and shot in and around Port Adelaide, her debut feature is a moving story of the strength and resilience of Aboriginal women.

The impacts of adoption are explored through the eyes of adoptees and their families. We meet the people who worked in Child Welfare Agencies in the 1960′s and explore why so many children were placed outside of Canada.

The series is the first up-to-date history of the ‘sixties scoop’, including the current debates surrounding the adoption of aboriginal children to non-aboriginal parents. We look at the struggle to open adoption records and the dozens of pending lawsuits by adoptees who were placed in the United States. We also explore different experiences, different stories, of how several adoptees have adjusted to meeting their birth families.

Roberta journeys both literally and emotionally back to her mother’s residential school to understand the roots and branches of effects it has had on her mother, herself and her daughter and how shapes her fear that somehow her own child could be taken away.

The daughter of a residential school survivor searches poetically to connect with her mother and to reconnect with herself.