Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival 2022
"Indigeneities"
Go to the Official Website of the 2022 MMFF
March 2: Night Raiders (dir Danis Goulet, 2021, Canada/New Zealand, in Cree and English w/ English subtitles, 101 min)
March 9: Maɬni - Towards the Ocean, Towards the Shore (dir Sky Hopinka, 2020, USA, in English and Chinuk Wawa w/ English subtitles, 82 min)
March 23: The Book of the Sea (dir Aleksei Vakhrushev, 2018, Russia, Chukchi and Russian w/ English subtitles, 85 min)
March 30: Maliglutit / Searchers (dir Zacarias Kunuk, 2016, Canada, in Inuktitut w/ English subtitles, 94 min)
April 6: Tracey Moffatt's early films: Nice Colored Girls (dir Tracey Moffatt, 1987, Australia, 16 min), Bedevil (dir Tracey Moffatt, 1993, Australia, 90 min)
April 13: Ste. Anne (dir Rhayne Vermette, 2021,Canada, in French w/ English subtitles, 80 minutes)
April 20: Vick Quezada selected works: Seed Unseed (dir Vick Quezada, 2020, United States/Mexico, Video Performance, 15 min), Destined for Gold (2019), High Grind, Low Wage (2018)
April 27: Short films by Ng'endo Mukii: Yellow Fever (dir Ng'endo Mukii, 2012, Kenya/UK, 7 min), This Migrant Business (dir Ng'endo Mukii, 2016, Kenya/Denmark, 6 min) Nairobi Berries (dir Ng'endo Mukii, 2017, Kenya/South Africa, 8 min), Kitwana's Journey (dir Ng'endo Mukii, 2019, Kenya, 6 min).
The 29th annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival proudly presents a season of global contemporary Indigenous film and media art. Over the past decade, Indigenous cinema has emerged from geographically-scattered and locally-based production centers to become part of a globally-linked media network with increasing reach and transnational presence. “Indigeneities” will explore how contemporary Indigenous filmmakers and media artists leverage moving image forms to directly address the politics of identity and representation. The films screened this season address Indigeneity, or Indigenous identity, through a range of cinematic genres– animation and 16mm film; hybrid documentary and feminist philosophy; historical reenactment and science fiction - both engaging and challenging the dominant mainstream media forms.
Access to films, critical introductions, and livestream discussions and Q&As with filmmakers will all be available through the festival platform Sparq and full festival schedule and information will be on our website umass.edu/film/mmff.
The festival opens on Wednesday March 2 with a livestream discussion of Night Raiders (2021) directed by Canadian filmmaker Danis Goulet (Cree-Métis) and produced by New Zealand film director Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, Thor). Night Raiders, a science fiction drama set in the year 2044, centers on Niska (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers), a Cree woman who joins a resistance movement to the military government in order to save her daughter.
This season’s MMFF screenings and events will again be entirely online. Weekly screenings will be via on-demand streaming in the days preceding the livestream discussion and Q&A with filmmakers and guests. Livestream events will be each Wednesday beginning March 2 and continuing to April 27. All films are accompanied by critical, contextualizing introductions by scholars and filmmakers. All events— screenings, introductions, audience Q&As and conversations with filmmakers and guests—are free and open to the public. Unless otherwise noted, livestream events begin at 7:30pm. Due to varying time zones for guests, some livestream events will be scheduled earlier in the day and be recorded for those unable to attend the earlier time.
Full website and (free) ticketing information available soon!
Land Acknowledgment
The University of Massachusetts Amherst acknowledges that it was founded and built on the unceded homelands of the Pocumtuc Nation on the land of the Norrwutuck community.
We begin with gratitude for nearby waters and lands. We recognize these lands and waters as important Relations with which we are all interconnected and depend on to sustain life and wellbeing. The Pocumtuc had connections with these lands for millennia. Over 400 years of colonization, when Pocumtuc Peoples were displaced, many joined their Algonquian relatives to the east, south, west and north. That includes Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag, Nipmuc, Narragansett, Mohegan, Pequot, Mohican, communities and Abenaki and other nations of the Wabanaki Confederacy. These Native peoples still maintain connections and relationships of care for these lands today. We also acknowledge that the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a Land Grant University. As part of the Morrill Land Grant Act, portions of land from 82 Native Nations west of the Mississippi were sold to provide the resources to found and build this university.
As an active first step toward decolonization, we encourage you to learn more about the Native Nations whose homelands UMass Amherst now resides on and the Indigenous homelands on which you live and work. We also invite you to deepen your relationship to these living lands and waters.
The 29th annual Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival is curated by Laura McGough with Daniel Pope and Nefeli Forni Zervoudaki, and with Shawn Shimpach, and presented by the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Barbara Zecchi, Director.