The First People’s Festival is celebrating its growth and success this year. With concerts and film and dance, the many cultures that thrived before the arrival of the Europeans, are being honoured in the heart of Montreal, on this 25th anniversary.
This sharing of indigenous culture was born during the summer of 1990, in the midst of the crisis and stand-off in Montreal’s neighbouring First Nation communities of Kanesatake and Kahnawake, co-founder and director André Dudemaine said.
“We were defending the cultural territory while in Oka they were defending the real territory”
“We were defending the cultural territory while in Oka they were defending the real territory. We were in the same struggle,” he said.
“Legend of the Storm”, is a fictional short film based on the Oka Crisis by Kahnawake filmmaker Roxann Whitebean, premièring during the festival.
Whitebean, 31, said the 16-minute film was inspired by her memories of living through the crisis as a six-year-old. “It explores what went on inside the homes, away from the barricades,” she said.
From July 29th until August 4th, aboriginal culture is in the spotlight. Saturday afternoon was the scene of the huge multi-cultural parade, where indigenous people from places around the world, joined Canada’s First Nations, exhibiting their costumes and music and demonstrating their dances.
The festival covers many facets of indigenous life, with events such as the workshop and conference that looked at the intersection of aboriginal traditional knowledge and contemporary architecture, that took place yesterday.
The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) is leading four master classes with First Nations filmmakers. And the second annual award to an “Aboriginal filmmaker who has particularly distinguished him or herself during the year” will be announced.
Florent Vollant and Richard Desjardins reunite and bring back memories of some of their favourite Kashtin songs. And on August 4th, the final evening, Alanis Obomsawin’s documentary, Kanehsatake, 270 Years of Resistance, will be screened outdoors at Place de la Paix.
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