Filmmaker Loretta Sarah Todd takes viewers on a dynamic journey, exploring the significance of land, memory and knowledge in Kainai life in southern Alberta. The catalyst for this expressionistic journey is the return of belongings of the Kainai, collected by Europeans during colonial times and kept in distant museums. As the community's elders examine the objects and share stories first-hand, they reveal how the rich threads of Kainai life thrive from one generation to the next.

 

"One powerful way in which [Loretta] Todd inserted the presence of the ancestors throughout [Kainayssini Imanistaisiwa: The People Go On] was to film white flags on the prairie at dusk waving in the wind as archival photographs are projected onto them, inscribing the images of the ancestors onto the landscape. Through innovative on-screen aesthetics -- interviewing people outside in the landscape, split screen panoramic vistas, [and projected archival images] -- The People Go On expresses visual sovereignty and experiments with the documentary genre, articulating a new vision for Aboriginal documentary practice."
-- Dr. Kristin L. Dowell - University of Nebraska

 

Hot Docs Documentary Festival; American Indian Film Festival; Amnesty International Film Festival; Raindance Film Festival; Museum of the American Indian Film and Video Festival, Art Gallery of Ontario.