Filmmakers of s-yéwyáw: Awaken, WaaPaKe (Tomorrow), and Ever Deadly get candid about their own personal journeys and the intentionality of their documentaries
By Renita Bangert
“The teachings of our Indigenous Elders are needed now more than ever to navigate a changing world.”
-Alfonso Salinas, Ecko Aleck, Charlene SanJenko (opening titles of s-yéwyáw: Awaken)
These are the words that open s-yéwyáw: Awaken, a collaborative documentary production. Alfonso Salinas, who is a member of the shíshálh Nation is a co-writer, co-producer, and field producer of the film. Salinas says that the film’s focus on intergenerational healing is vastly important to him and his community. He chose to participate in the film to learn from the generations before him, and to pass that knowledge on to the next generation.
“I am that knowledge keeper for them,” he notes in an interview with IRSHDC. “I’m teaching them…And providing those experiences that our ancestors used to do with canoeing, drumming, singing and dancing.”
The film is co-created by Alfonso and two other Indigenous creators: Ecko Aleck from the Nlaka’pamux Nation is co-writer, co-producer and composer; and Charlene SanJenko from the Splatsin of the Secwépemc Nation is co-writer, co-producer, and impact producer.
Working alongside executive producer Liz Marshall and a team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous filmmakers, s-yéwyáw: Awaken also features Aleck, Salinas and SanJenko as contributors in front of the camera. They take part in personal and authentic conversations with their Elders, learning their cultural teachings and how the impacts of genocide and the Indian Residential School system continue to reverberate through them.
Aleck speaks with her father, Elder Terry Coyote Aleck of the Nlaka’pamux Nation. Salinas connects with both his grandfather, hiwus Calvin Craigan, and with his Elder, x wu’ p’ a’ lich Barbara Higgins of the shíshálh Nation. SanJenko, who is creating a film of her own (Coming Home for the Children), is continuing her collaboration with seven-term elected Chief Wenecwtsin Wayne Christian of Splatsin of the Secwépemc Nation.
Documentarian Marshall, who co-wrote and directed the film, says that working on s-yéwyáw: Awaken with a team who was both Indigenous and non-Indigenous shaped the entire production.
“We make it clear in the opening scene that we are working together as a cross-cultural collaboration,” she says. “We understand that in that cross-cultural collaboration…there is an understanding that decolonization is important. That work is in process.”
Dr. Jules Koostachin, who is Cree and from Attawapiskat First Nation, prioritizes and centers protocol and positionality within her productions. Within many Indigenous cultures, protocol and positionality are immensely important to doing healing work in a good way. Protocol and positionality are also a key part of Koostachin’s research and filmmaking practice.
In her 2023 documentary WaaPaKe (Tomorrow), she brings an especially personal focus to her work, featuring herself and her family as participants. As in s-yéwyáw: Awaken, each of the participants in Koostachin’s film are Survivors or Intergenerational Survivors.
Through interviews with Koostachin as both the interviewer and the interviewee, WaaPaKe (Tomorrow) asks, “who are we without our intergenerational trauma?” Koostachin says it’s a painful question to address.
She goes on to say that in order to begin healing from trauma, “you’ve got to talk about it. You’ve got to expose it…And that’s what this film is.” It’s deeply intimate, and cultural safety must be considered when unearthing the deep-seated trauma of Survivors and their kin.
“My mom’s a Survivor…So it’s always been something that’s plagued our family continuously,” Koostachin says. “My mom would share these, like, horrific stories growing up.”
The ways in which Survivors choose to share their stories (and what they choose to share) matters, too. “There are some people that are healed by talking about [trauma], and some people that heal by not talking about it,” Inuk singer, composer and author Tanya Tagaq says. “We always have to be respectful of everybody’s process on how to deal with these sorts of situations.”
Tagaq is from Iqaluktuuttiaq, and is both a Survivor and Intergenerational Survivor. For her film Ever Deadly, a documentary that is part improvised concert and part personal story, Tagaq brings forth her relationship with her own traumas as well as her family’s personal and cultural losses. However, she says the way she frames her story is key: “It’s very important in my work to address trauma on more of a collective, to address it in a cultural sense. And, to address themes of trauma more than, direct personal experiences.”
She combines her relationship with her art, her evolution of throat singing (drawn from the traditional Inuit katajjaq), her connection to the land and her family story in a way that feels personal, but retains her autonomy and choice.
Salinas says that deciding which parts of ceremony and cultural practice could even be safely depicted in s-yéwyáw: Awaken required serious consideration on his part and on the part of the filmmaking team as a whole. However, the value of the film as an archive of teachings from Elders helped him to make those decisions.
A few scenes in particular depict ceremony and spiritual connection in moments that feel particularly raw. At the end of the film, we see a canoe awakening ceremony featuring Elder x wu’ p’ a’ lich, Barbara Higgins of the shíshálh Nation. Salinas says that he had some hesitation about capturing something so sacred on film.
“I talked to Barb and her daughter about it being filmed,” he says, “and they said that they think it’s a good thing.” X wu’ p’ a’ lich Barbara Higgins passed away in November of 2023 – Salinas says having these remembrances of her in s-yéwyáw: Awaken feel all the more sacred now.
“The story was going to be my story. I felt like it would be good to capture, especially with my Elders.”
Koostachin echoes the importance of consultation and relationality, in WaaPaKe (Tomorrow) and in Indigenous filmmaking as a whole.
“I think the stakes are high for us as Indigenous folks in terms of sharing our story, because these are our relationships,” she says. “So, we’ve got to make sure we take care of each other.”
“…I realized really quickly how vulnerable you can be when you’re sharing these kinds of stories. So, I thought, okay, if I’m going to ask these guys to share, like, people that I really care about to share their story, then I need to be part of the story as well.”
The opening scene of Ever Deadly is a long single shot of Tagaq and performance artist, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, performing katajjaq together. It is an extremely intimate and vulnerable moment, yet powerful, and it immediately situates the film in place on Tagaq’s ancestral land. When Tagaq speaks to her mother Mary Gillis about her experiences with displacement later in the film, this positionality helps build a container for the conversation within the film.
“Canada did its business with us and relocated many of us,” Tagaq says. “It was a harrowing experience for my mother, and a lot of people don’t understand how older Inuit speak.” In Inuktitut, there is no embellishment – words are taken literally.
Tagaq adds, “So when my mother could say a sentence like we almost starved, it’s very difficult to say that to somebody here down in the South. You could say, I almost starved and they go, Oh, like, what did you skip dinner? Whereas her as an Inuit, you know, it really means she almost starved, like they almost didn’t make it.” Leaving space for stories to be told according to the teller is deeply important to Tagaq and to Ever Deadly’s structure.
In an early scene in WaaPaKe (Tomorrow), Jules lovingly teases Asivak when he makes a mistake while speaking Cree. It is a tender and personal moment that reflects their closeness and breaks the “fourth wall” to show the closeness of the entire film’s production.
Koostachin filmed conversations with her mother Rita Okimawinninew, who is Cree from Attawapiskat First Nation, as well as her son Asivak Koostachin, who is also Cree from Attawapiskat First Nation, as well as Inuk from Inuvik, North West Territories. She also speaks with friends Joseph Dandurand of Kwantlen First Nation (director of the Kwantlen Cultural Centre) and Maisie Smith, an Indigenous counsellor who is Tlingit and Northern Tutchone from Champagne and Aishihik First Nations. In each of the conversations, Koostachin’s commitment to sharing the vulnerability of the process is clear.
Marshall says that making films like these is providing a source of hope and healing to both creators and viewers. When asked about the teachings she has carried with her from the experience of co-creating s-yéwyáw: Awaken, she references Elder hiwus, Calvin Craigan.
“He says that what gives him hope is seeing the younger generation…carry themselves with dignity. And that is exactly the essence of what the film is communicating, actually – it’s that dignity.”
In Koostachin’s experience, healing must be a multi-generational process, and she is witnessing it even as she does this work.
“I feel like I’m already seeing it with my kids,” she says, “like, they don’t have to carry that same weight that I do.” She says she wants to see her children soar. When she speaks with her son Asivak in WaaPaKe (Tomorrow), the power of intergenerational knowledge transfer is clear – he expresses his hurt and anger openly, along with his hope for the future.
Koostachin says this is more than a personal journey. It’s a matter of life and death for Indigenous communities, and she has already lost family members to the ongoing impacts of Residential Schools.
“This has such a horrific weight on families and communities. And if we don’t start talking about it, more people are going to pass away.”
Koostachin says that even though she knows this work is vital, it’s still incredibly difficult to be so open with one’s trauma. When reflecting on being called “brave” for the vulnerability of WaaPaKe (Tomorrow), she retorts, “Oh, damn straight! This is probably the bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Guilt and shame always lead to fear and anger. It’s about being able to forgive yourself for what you have to carry.”
-Tanya Tagaq
“It’s sometimes hard to forgive yourself, too,” says Tagaq, speaking about the process of healing from trauma that has fundamentally shaped you. “Guilt and shame always lead to fear and anger. It’s about being able to forgive yourself for what you have to carry.”
WaaPaKe (Tomorrow), s-yéwyáw: Awaken, and Ever Deadly are more than media to be consumed passively. These films ask the audience to engage directly, to witness, and to intertwine these stories with them.
Tagaq says that audience matters – “I would tell a completely different story in a room full of Indigenous people.” When asked what she would say to a Survivor audience watching Ever Deadly, she says, “At least we don’t have to be alone. At least we go through it together.”
Marshall says the first thing viewers of these films can do to actively take part in the storytelling process is to commit to the films themselves.
“If you allow yourself to turn off your devices,” she says, “and give yourself the time and space to watch a 90-minute film, in a fully engaged, present way, that’s step number one.”
The teachings in these films go beyond a basic history of the Indian Residential School system and its ongoing impacts in the interest of stories that go deeper. Koostachin says that it’s important for settlers to take responsibility for their own learning.
“I think it’s so important for people to know the history of this place,” she says. “But not just the colonial one…the Indigenous one, like the first one.”
When Salinas thinks about the impact of Indigenous documentary and how to continue the healing process, he says the future is built on collaboration and growth between Indigenous and settler communities – the creation of s-yéwyáw: Awaken is a microcosm of what that could look like.
“I think one of the biggest parts is learning about genocide and then how we can heal together moving forward. ‘Cause it’s not just Indigenous people that have to heal. It’s pretty much the whole country. And this film is a part of that.”
“We’re creating something for future generations,” says Koostachin. “I am making this film, so 50 years down the road, people know this is real. This is what happened. You can’t erase me.”
—
Join the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre for screenings of s-yéwyáw: Awaken, Ever Deadly and WaaPaKe (Tomorrow).
Ever Deadly will be screened on September 20 at the IRSHDC Gallery.