Accomplishments set in stone

Five luminaries of the Indigenous film and communication arts community were celebrated at the 11th annual Dreamspeakers Film Festival in Edmonton on June 10.

Their hands and signatures were cast in cement as the second set of inductees into the Dreamspeakers organization's Walk of Honour.

Producer/director Alanis Obomsawin smiled broadly as she planted her hands in the wet cement and asked for a glass of champagne to celebrate the honor. She teased a member of the RCMP honor guard saying it was unique to have a police officer be nice to her. Obomsawin perhaps is best known for her documentaries surrounding the events in Oka, Que. during the land rights confrontation in 1990.

The accomplishments of film and theatre actress Tantoo Cardinal were also commemorated. She quipped, as she signed under her handprints, that her grandmother had given her her unusual first name. When asked what Tantoo meant, she said it was the brand name of a mosquito repellant.
Documentary and feature film director Gil Cardinal, Maori director Barry Barclay, and publisher and Aboriginal radio trail blazer Bert Crowfoot rounded out the honorees. As film and television crews recorded the event for a variety of broadcasters, Crowfoot said he recognized eight former staffers of the Aboriginal Multi-Media Society (AMMSA), the organization he heads, among the journalists working the story, a testament to the impact the AMMSA organization has had in the world of communications arts.

A brass plaque that details the accomplishments of each of the inductees will be attached to the hand casts and will be on permanent display as of August in Winston Churchill Square near Edmonton's City Hall.

The Walk of Honour gala was attended by film and television industry heavy weights, including one of last year's Walk of Honour inductees, Jimmy Herman. Directors and actors associated with the 23 films shown during the four-day Dreamspeakers festival also attended, including director Marie Burke of the film Spirit Doctors and Pigeon Powwow director Ken Williams, who was doing double-duty reporting on the event for APTN. Both Burke and Williams are former AMMSA employees.

Gil Cardinal's two-part mini-series Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis opened the festival. Cardinal also received special honors on gala night for best feature film.

Composer Brent Michael Davids, who held a workshop earlier in the day on film scoring, attended the gala decked out in an impressive top hat and purple crushed-velvet tails. His work to rescore the 1920's Hollywood version of the Last of the Mohicans was one of the films on the Dreamspeakers agenda.

Other workshop presenters were writer director Aaron James Sorensen. His workshop was entitled How to Make a Movie When You've Never Made One Before. His first film Hank Williams First Nation is one of the highest grossing Canadian features in 2005, playing in every major market in Canada and at festivals across the United States. He is currently developing the Hank Williams First Nation story into a television series.