The ImagineNative festival runs until Oct. 21 at various venues. Visit www.imaginenative.org for scheduling and ticket info.
Like so many people of Aboriginal heritage in Canada, the lead characters in Tkaronto
– a local feature that makes its world premiere at imagineNATIVE this
weekend – feel torn between two cultures and at home in neither one. An
artist struggling to find a way to connect with her Ojibway roots,
Jolene (Melanie McLaren) feels she's reached that difficult juncture
when “we stop pointing to our parents and saying, ‘Hey, they're
Aboriginal,' and start asking, ‘How am I Aboriginal?'”
It's a question that crops up in many works at imagineNATIVE,
Toronto's annual festival of film and media works by indigenous people.
Tkaronto (
;
Oct. 21, 6:30pm, Royal, 608 College) handles it with an unusual amount
of poise and insight. The quality of writer-director Shane Belcourt's
feature debut – named after our city's original Mohawk name – is all
the more remarkable when you consider that it was made in six months on
a measly budget of $20,000.
Based on Belcourt's experience as the son of a Metis father,
the movie portrays the crises of Jolene and Ray (Duane Murray), two
thirtysomethings who can't figure out a way to square up their urban
lifestyles and material ambitions with what an elder (played by Lorne
Cardinal) calls “blood memory.” But for all of Tkaronto's heavy themes,
the film has a sense of lightness that makes it one of the year's most
appealing local indie features.
Another fest highlight, Water Flowing Together (;
Oct. 18, 7pm, Al Green Theatre, 750 Spadina Av.) approaches many of the
same issues while wearing ballet shoes. Gwendolen Cates' doc is a
biographical portrait of Jock Soto, long-time star of the New York City
Ballet. As the son of a Puerto Rican man and a Navajo woman, he too
faces pressing issues about his identity, especially once he decides to
retire from dancing and start his life anew. Though Cates' film doesn't
penetrate very deeply, Soto is an excellent subject thanks to his
athletic grace, personal charm and eagerness to discover exactly how
he's Aboriginal. Of course, answering that question is not gonna be
easy.