Festival’s reputation continues to expand

The 12th Annual imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival kicked off in Toronto Oct. 19 at the Native Canadian Centre bringing festival goers and performers together from the far reaches of the earth.

It all began with Cynthia Lickers-Sage, a co-founder of imagineNATIVE with Lisa Steele. They were working at Vtape, Canada’s largest independent international distribution centre, when the idea of a festival of this type started to form.

“We had been cataloguing a lot of independent film work, and work by NFB, The National Film Board, and we had access to all this information,” said Lickers-Sage, referring to a vast catalogue of Aboriginal-made films without an outlet to showcase them.

The feeling from the organizers of the other, larger film festivals was that there weren’t enough Canadian Indigenous films to build a program, and the film-makers that were around hadn’t progressed to the level of professionalism that mainstream films had reached.
Lickers-Sage and Steele decided to push on.

Steele, the then executive director at Vtape, wrote an application and received some funding to launch a film festival.

“We’ll have to start off big,” Lickers-Sage had said at the time, referring to the decision in 1999 to have imagineNATIVE go international Indigenous rather than stay with local Aboriginal-made films.

Throughout the years, imagineNATIVE continued to expand its international presence to become the largest Indigenous media arts festival in the world, while also extending its reach though the Web.

“This is by far the largest imagineNATIVE ever,” said first year executive director Jason Ryle of this year’s event. “I have my first white hair to prove it.”

The festival presents a selection of the most compelling and distinctive Indigenous works from around the globe every fall. There are screenings, parties, panel discussions, and cultural events, which attract and connect filmmakers, media artists, programmers, buyers, and industry professionals during the five-day event.

Ryle spoke at the opening night of “On the Ice,” a gritty coming of age film about two Iñupiaq teenagers living in Barrow, Alaska, directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean.
“We have over 110 works representing 66 Indigenous nations from 11 geographic countries,” said Ryle, referring to the global Indigenous presence that imagineNATIVE has carved out for itself.

imagineNATIVE, however, has not forgotten its local Canadian Aboriginal roots.

“The majority of our work has always been Canadian. It’s like 60 per cent,” Ryle said about the local focus that Imaginative has always strived for.

Ryle talked about the festival’s longevity.

“There’s not a lot of turn-over at the board level or the staff level, and that’s important for any organization just to keep momentum going,” Ryle said.

Taking advantage of social media this year, imagineNATIVE organizers released an Iphone Application that allows festival goers to take photos and upload them so they will be showcased on the imagineNATIVE Web site

“Well, really, in the next few years we really want to carry on and continue with having that home for film and video at the festival. We also work to elevate the radio and the media arts” Ryle said.

“I am really proud of imagineNATIVE and other Aboriginal arts festivals,” said Buffy Sainte-Marie during an interview. Sainte-Marie was a featured performer, which included taking part in a panel discussion about her life and career. “I think imagineNATIVE will continue to expand.”

imagineNATIVE gives young, first-time filmmakers exposure, like Niki Little, who was one of three people that made the film Maiden Indian, a four-minute short featured at the festival.

“It’s so fun. I think it’s been really great,” said Little, a citizen of Garden Hill First Nation, Man. “It’s so many different aspects that are coming together really well. I think what they are trying to do is really amazing and it gets bigger and better every year.”