Heather Rae films to be spotlighted at festival

The 16th annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival will be held in Toronto Oct. 14 to 18.

imagineNATIVE's opening night gala will be held at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema with Sterlin Harjo's Mekko, starring Rod Rondeaux and Sarah Podemski. 

Mekko is a thriller following a man who must navigate a welcoming, yet dangerous, community of Native Americans living on the streets, after release from his 20-year prison sentence.

Prior to Mekko, imagineNATIVE will present the premiere of Jeff Barnaby’s experimental short film Etlinisigu'niet (Bleed Down). 

Closing will feature Fire Song by Cree/Métis filmmaker Adam Garnet Jones at TIFF Bell Lightbox. Fire Song is a dramatic feature film starring Andrew Martin and Jennifer Podemski, about a young gay man who dreams of leaving his reserve for the city. When the world as he knows it falls apart, the future he’s been dreaming of seems impossible to reach.

The 2015 International Spotlight will focus on Sámi films and filmmakers of the Sápmi nation, the Indigenous people of Norway, Sweden, Finland and northwestern Russia.

Proud reindeer herders, the Sámi have a rich tradition as
artists and filmmakers. As part of the Spotlight on Sápmi, imagineNATIVE will present two shorts programs, Nils Gaup's Academy-Award nominated Pathfinder, and indigiTALKS: Our Stories Must Be Heard, a video-essay series introducing the world of Sámi cinema from stereotypical depictions in mainstream film, to the International Sámi Film Institute which funds contemporary Sámi features and TV series. 

The inaugural Artist Spotlight will celebrate the work
of Cherokee filmmaker Heather Rae. This annual Artist Spotlight will acknowledge Indigenous creative leaders whose work has broken new ground and created lasting contributions to the Indigenous media arts.

Heather Rae will be in attendance as three of her films are
screened, Trudell, Wild Walkers, and the two-time Academy Award-nominated Frozen River, that will be followed by a tribute to the late actress Misty Upham, co-star of Frozen River.  

The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world’s largest Indigenous festival showcasing innovation in film, video, audio and digital media. The festival presents the most compelling and distinctive works from Canada and around the globe, reflecting the diversity of the world’s Indigenous nations and illustrating the vitality and excellence of Native art and culture in
contemporary media, reads a press statement.