ARCTIC INDIGENOUS VOICES : SHORTS PROGRAMME AT 19TH NATIVE SPIRIT FESTIVAL

19th Native Spirit Festial & Indigenous Studies Discussion Group (ISDG) present a ARCTIC INDIGENOUS VOICES Shorts programme at Old Divinity School, Main Theatre, St John's College, Cambridge University. (speakers tbc)

Short-doc about 82 year old Indigenous Inuk, a South Greenlandic grass sewing specialist, Marie Josefsen, and her story of probably being the last grass seamstress in Greenland. Growing up, Marie was surrounded by her mother and aunts who sewed lyme grass into baskets, coasters, and etc. Her father and uncles would collect the grass on hunting islands with their kayaks. The arts & craft had been passed down from her foremothers in her family for generations. After years of being active in grass sewing, she’d thought to herself, what if she passes away? Then the arts and craft of grass sewing would die out in Greenland…

PRESERVE OUR CULTURE (UK premiere)

Dir. Edouard Kaltush, 6min, 2024, Nutashkuan, Innu Nation. Canada

For Edouard Kaltush, the Innu culture is a remedy that must be practised and preserved. To pass on his traditional skills, he teaches three children in his community how to weave snowshoes and fish for lobster at low tide.

A cinematic poem of arctic survival. This visually stunning film blends myth and modernity to tell the story of a remote Alaskan village and the Inupiat people, who hunt bowhead whales as part of subsistence living and spiritual practice.

Inuit without snow. Windmills over reindeer. Coastal erosion. Overconsumption. Salmon fishing bans. Witness: Arctic Indigenous Voices tells five powerful stories from the frontlines of climate change, where Arctic Indigenous communities fight for survival and the future they want to see. From Inuit sisters passing on ancestral wisdom to prepare their daughters for a future without the land they once knew, to green energy projects threatening Sámi traditions, the film reveals the painful trade-offs of so-called progress. It captures the resilience of Tuktoyaktuk’s youth as coastal erosion forces them to relocate, echoing the scars of colonisation. A Greenlandic perspective exposes the connection between overconsumption and environmental destruction, while Alaska Native communities unite to protect their vital salmon fisheries. Witness: Arctic Indigenous Voices lays bare the relentless struggle of Indigenous peoples against a world in flux and their unwavering determination to preserve their way of life.

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Host or Publisher Native Spirit Festival & ISDG Cambridge