The Montréal First Peoples’ Festival is back!

Cinema 

In all, nineteen feature films will vie for the prize in this year’s competition, with eleven fiction films to make their Montréal debut at the Cinéma du Musée. In particular, the recurring theme of “childhood” is explored by many of the dramatic works in this exciting edition. 

Yintah opens the festival on August 6 with a compelling story of sovereignty and struggle, depicting the decade-long battle of the Wet’suwet’en nation to protect its land from oil exploitation. 

The Peruvian psychological drama Yana-Wara by the late Oscar Catacora follows the trial of an old man for the murder of his 13-year-old granddaughter. During the trial, the abuse suffered by the little girl in the Quechua community comes to light. 

The highly emotional Valentina or the Serenity follows the journey of a Mixtec child who must overcome her grief following the death of her father. 

On the lighter side, Frybread Face and Me will delight festivalgoers with its heartwarming tale of an urban Indigenous teen spending his summer vacation with his Navajo grandmother. 

Again this year, an array of powerful international films deftly capture the struggle and efforts of Indigenous people in defense of their ancestral lands. First up is the world premier of Santiago Bertolino’s Québec production,  Amazonie, à la rencontre des gardiens et gardiennes de la forêt (Amazonia: An Encounter with the Guardians of the Rainforest), followed by  This is our everything from Germany.

The Greek documentary, Land of the Forgotten Songs offers a unique view into the everyday lives of Indigenous communities in the Amazon forest, connecting past and present through ancient myth with rare 20^th-century archival photographic material.   

Romantics will be tickled by Eallogierdu, the Tundra Within Me by director Sara Margrethe Oskal, a love story as much about relationships as about Nordic culture set amidst breathtaking landscapes. 

Don’t miss Corey Payette's Les Filles du Roi (The King's Daughters), a trilingual (English, Kanien'keha, and French) musical film offering an Indigenous feminist perspective on the contact period through dance and song.

Warwick Thornton's latest opus, The New Boy, will close the festival. The film showcases the experience of a kidnapped Indigenous boy who ends up at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun played by the always stellar Cate Blanchett.