Aretha Greatrix is a Cree film maker and Program Director with the Dreamspeakers Film Festival. She chats with Bill about the rich history behind the festival which in one of the first ever Indigenous film festival. They also chat about some of this weekends films and what people can expect:
This year’s festival has over 40 films, filmmaker panels, an animation workshop and more. Each film was selected by our jury from over 200 entries. There are documentaries, shorts, features, animations, and films from seasoned professionals and first time directors. The films hail from all over the world including: Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Chile, Japan, and for the first time, Iran. DIIFF will once again have both in person and online screenings.
In person screenings and panels will be held at Metro Cinema at the Garneau from April 26-28 and online screenings and workshops from April 29-May 6 on our Eventive Website: watch.eventive.org/diiff2024
History:
Dreamspeakers International Indigenous Film Festival (DIIFF) was first presented in Edmonton in 1992 and was the first Indigenous film Festival in Canada. It was founded by Indigenous filmmakers and creatives in response to the growing industry and to support Indigenous representation in film and media. The name “Dreamspeakers” was derived from a story about the first Dene film maker who returned home to his community in the north and was struggling to talk to the Elders about his work, because a word for filmmaker did not exist in their language. The Elders understood and called it Dreamtalking. We adapted our name from this story.
Full details on this weekends festivl can be found on theDreamspeakers website.
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