CSIF mentorship to help Métis filmmaker examine identity

“I will be crazy excited and terrified to see my head on screen,” said Jessie Short, who was selected for this year’s Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers/imagineNATIVE mentorship program.  The annual mentorship enables an Indigenous artist living in Alberta to expand his practice into film and video and screen his work at the imagineNATIVE film festival in Toronto in October.

Having completed her Master’s degree in Contemporary Métis Visual Culture in Ontario and lived there for the past 13 years, Short, a curator, writer and multi-disciplinary artist, recently returned to Alberta.

While living in southern Ontario, she was at a loss when she was introduced as Métis.

“I was met with blank stares,” she said. “Métis, what is that?”

Realizing how unknown Métis culture is in the east, Short said, “I always fell back on Louis Riel; most Canadians had learned about him in school as a traitor of the Canadian government.”

This led her to question, “What do I have to look like for you to understand?”

The project proposal that secured her the mentorship with contemporary filmmaker Ramin Eshraghi-Yazdi is for a five-minute short independent film that explores her own Métis identity through the figure of Riel.

“Personally, Dad was Métis, but it was not talked about. I knew it as I got older. I’m also Ukrainian. I grew up with cabbage rolls and perogies,” said Short. “As I got older, this big gap, it exists, what’s going on?”

“There were a number of strong projects this year,” said Yvonne Abusow, CSIF production director. First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists apply to the ImagineNATIVE program. In its second year of partnership with imagineNATIVE, CSIF provides in-kind resources for an independent filmmaker to create his project, including equipment, resources and some financial support. Last year, Jarret Twoyoungmen, from Morley, produced a short film titled Morningstar, about family life on the reservation.

Different aspects of Short’s project were evaluated by imagineNATIVE and CSIF staff.  Artistic merit, creativity, ability to complete, budget and concept came in to play, says Abusow.

“Métis stories sometimes get lost, so we chose this project. Her idea was unique and experimental,” Abusow said. 

“Gender and identity are big concepts.”

With over 200 members, CSIF holds workshops throughout the year, often in partnership with other organizations, member screenings, a five-month film-making intensive and summer media arts camps. Based in Toronto, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival has programmed film, video and new media works by Canadian and international Indigenous media artists for 16 years. It is committed to dispelling stereotypical depictions of Indigenous peoples.

The film will further explore

her own process, says Short, and bring the Métis/Ukrainian aspect into the present. The film will be made in celluloid as opposed to digital, as are all films created with CSIF.

“Celluloid will work well; it changes the entire look and feel,” said Short. “Playing with the sense of time, it’s closer to the original medium.”

Short already has her next project in mind, a family history. Her great great uncle, Edouard BeauprÈ, born in Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan, in 1881, was the tallest man in Canada at 8 feet 3 inches. Although he died in 1904 in the United States while traveling with the circus, Short’s family didn’t get his body back until 1990. She distinctly recalls attending his funeral at age nine but never thought about this until she was older. For this documentary, she has come home to begin her research.