Media arts festival attracts international attention

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British Columbia was once again well represented at imagineNATIVE, a media arts festival held in Toronto in late October.

This marked the third year the Native festival has been held, and the event, which ran from Oct. 24 to 27, continues to grow each year.

This year there were about 65 artists (a considerable increase from the 20 that took part during the festival's inaugural year) showcasing their work in film, video, television, radio and multimedia. Eight of them hail from British Columbia.

One was Greg Coyes, a Vancouver director, who had primarily concentrated on documentaries during his early years in the business. But Coyes, a 47-year-old Metis of Cree and Mohawk ancestry, has been mostly directing animated films the past few years.

His latest work is called Stories from the 7th Fire. This project includes four segments, called Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. Each piece is about 30 minutes long.

The Spring segment was screened at imagineNATIVE. The story is about how spring began and it is told using animation drawn in a style made famous by Norval Morriseau.

Coyes was in Toronto for the inaugural festival in 2000 but missed last year's event.

"It was incredible even then," he said. "There's a spirit that surrounds this festival which is very important, and I relate it to the fact Toronto in Mohawk means The Gathering Place or The Meeting Place. There's an energy here that is very collaborative. It's very warm here. People feel acknowledged. They feel recognized here and it makes for a very productive dialogue that happens between all of the participants."

Besides the screenings, the festival also included socials and free workshops that were very well attended.

None of the British Columbia artists, however, won any of the six awards presented in conjunction with the closing night activities. They were best television award, best multimedia award, best experimental award, best radio program award, best documentary award and best drama award.

Besides Canada, the festival also attracted Native artists from the United States, Australia, Bolivia, France, Greenland, New Zealand and for the first time, Russia.

Next year's event will also be in Toronto. But there is some speculation it could be moved to another city in future years.

"There is a spirit that is the festival and I think that it could successfully travel," said Coyes.

Richard Hunter, imagineNATIVE's executive producer, agreed the day might come when the festival is held somewhere other than Toronto.

"A lot of people want us to move it around," he said. "We're getting invited to host this in other countries because the nature of this festival is international. Indigenous folks are really a kind of people without borders."

Other B.C. representatives at this year's festival included Dorothy Christian, Thirza Cuthand, Terry Haines, Lynn Hill, Aaron Rice, Tracey Jack and Unlimited Digital Communications.

Christian, who is from the Okanagan-Shuswap Nation, co-produced Living the Prophecy, along with Toronto's Sadia Zaman. The film follows Native runners on their seven-month trek from Alaska to Mexico.

Cuthand, a Cree residing in Vancouver, directed Anhedonia, a short film dealing with her interpretation of a lesbian identity.

Meanwhile, three other B.C. artists, Haines (Shuswap), Hill (Cayuga) and Rice (Mohawk), teamed up to direct Ravenheart, a 10-minute film combining myth, mystery, fable and suspense.

Jack, a member of the Okanagan Nation, directed REZcovery, a documentary about youths detailing their experiences of life-changing mistakes they made.

Unlimited Digital Communications made a video showcasing the work of West Coast artist Bill Reid Pole.