The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia – Take 5
Screening Dates
  • January 28, 2019 8:30

“In 1903, a magnificent whaler’s shrine was shipped from Friendly Cove (or Yuqout) on B.C.‘s Nootka Island to New York’s Museum of Natural History. The shrine had lain at the cultural heart of the Mowachaht, whale hunters and fishermen who had lived at Friendly Cove for thousands of years. In the 1960s and ​’70s, most Mowachaht left their ancient village and moved to Vancouver Island, to a new site near a pulp mill. They suffered extremes of pollution, violence, and alcohol abuse. Then, in the 1990s, in defiance of the agony of their history and to overcome the grief of the present, the Mowachaht and their neighbours, the Muchalaht, revived their songs and dances, revisited their shrine, and rediscovered their pride” (National Film Board of Canada). B.C.-based anthropologist and documentarian Hugh Brody has specialized in Aboriginal issues over a long and distinguished career.

preceded by

Augusta
Canada 1976
Anne Wheeler
16 min. DCP

This early short by prominent B.C. director Anne Wheeler (Loyalties, Better than Chocolate) is a moving documentary portrait of remarkable, resilient Augusta, an 88-year-old Secwépemc (or Shuswap) woman and residential schools survivor living alone in a log cabin without running water or electricity near Williams Lake, B.C.

Guest in attendance: Cari Green, producer, The Washing of Tears