I had never truly seen the inside of The Birdhouse before. I considered myself a pretty frequent attendee — earlier this month, I dropped in for an all-Filipino lineup of drag performers — but the details of the space itself had never really registered in my mind. Usually, I’m too focused on squeezing through a sold-out crowd to strategically position myself by the nearest fan, fishing for earplugs in my purse or dodging a queen strutting down the middle of the room, doing her best to part a sea of people waving $5 bills in her face.
I saw the venue in a different light on June 18 at Skátne. The DIY-ness of the warehouse was more evident in the daytime: the industrial ceilings, the worn concrete floors, the clusters of mirrorballs hung up with chains. The space had a handmade charm to it.
Skátne — Kanien’kéha for “all together” — was a film screening curated by filmmaker KJ Edwards, co-organized by Full Circle and the Pride in Art Society as part of this year’s Queer Arts Festival program. It featured five short films and music videos by queer Indigenous artists.
The venue wasn’t equipped to showcase the films to their full visual potential, as the projector caused everything to appear a bit murky. But The Birdhouse was the right place to present these works. The queer community hub, which has recently ran afoul with the City of Vancouver amid its crackdown on DIY venues, captured the themes that emerged throughout the films — of displacement, chosen family, belonging — much more effectively than a theatre might have.
The event opened with ODMK’s “Four Spirits Walk As One,” a sub-five-minute, Chaplin-esque silent film portraying a first date between a pair of Two-Spirit people. It didn’t take itself too seriously — their picnic supplies were identifiable via comically large labels, and most of the dialogue (or phrases scrawled on tiny signs, rather) was pretty cheesy. But there’s value in reclaiming even the silliest of cinematic forms by reimagining them with characters who would’ve never made their way into the mainstream media of the time. Shot on 8mm film and edited on an iPhone 7+, it was not the most polished piece of the night, but its simplicity was charming.
Also on the shorter side, “Taha, Ua” reflected on Indigenous communities from across the Pacific Ocean. It drew on director Ngaire Lyden-Elleray’s mixed Pasifika background and the challenges of finding ‘home’ after being displaced. Lyden-Elleray’s early creative projects existed in the realm of poetry and prose. “Taha, Ua” — “one, two” in Tongan — was an opportunity for her to exercise those skills while overlapping them with other artistic mediums like dance, performed by Annelie Wells and Nenaa’ikiizhikok Kinew Erdrich.
“You only know from the curve of your nose, the hunch of your back, the dips of your eyes, and stories pried from an orphan's hands,” she recites in the film, as we observe the subtle movements of a person’s bare back, the sandy shores of the Pacific Ocean, a dancer in vibrant regalia travelling in slow motion through void-like darkness. “Holiness, wholeness, was never an option for you. You were never even given a chance.”
Lyden-Elleray didn’t grow up speaking Tongan, so permanently capturing the initial steps of learning their language was a challenge to reckon with, they said. But even if the language isn’t entirely perfect, they see their storytelling as reclaiming their family’s narrative from the museums, archives and academic institutions that allow settlers to dominate conversations on Indigenous histories.
Rylan Friday’s “TERROR/FORMING” followed, an intriguing take on horror as a vehicle for anti-colonial commentary. The film was born out of “dating white men, a 30mg edible and the American Dream,” Friday joked at a Q&A following the screening.
Friday started his career in radio, which shows in his attention to sonic detail; “TERROR/FORMING” begins in near-complete darkness, revealing only the faintest outline of our main characters’ back profiles and the interior of a car. I find my attention drawn to the rumble of car tires against a gritty, unpaved road, and to the couple bickering, still oblivious to what they might encounter. It’s a classic horror film opening, signalling a story sure to face a doomed end. We learn that the couple, Darren and Parker, are headed to Parker’s late kokum’s — grandmother in Cree — cabin.
On the way there, they come across a deer carcass hanging from a tree. They choose to write it off as a cougar attack, but both of them know that’s not true. Although Parker tries to warn his white partner of the supernatural occurrences they might face in the area, Darren refuses to take him seriously until it’s too late; it’s a clear allegory for the challenges they seem to be facing in their relationship, specifically when it comes to talking about Parker’s indigeneity.
Friday’s relatives went through Saskatchewan’s residential school system, he said, and both sides of his family have always been deeply spiritual — this intersection of trauma and hauntings is nothing new to him. The film is a 20-minute-long continuous shot, which Friday partly attributes to a desire to break away from settler storytelling conventions. A feature-length adaptation is currently in the works.
“Find My Way Back” by Samuel Gaskin and Kee’ahn was the only music video of the night. Through over-the-top makeup and special effects straight out of a science fiction movie, it reminds listeners that their ancestors are present in one way or another — and that it’s always possible to find one’s way back to their roots.
“ÁHKUIN” by Sámi artist Radio-JusSunná was a sharp pivot away from the grandness of Gaskin’s piece, but was by far the most visually stunning work of the night. The film is an “ode to grandmothers” shot in Gáregasnjárga (or Karigasniemi, in Finnish), a village in Finland's Lapland region.
Radio-JusSunná intersperses cuts of old tape interviews with beautiful spoken word and joik, a form of traditional Sámi song, to depict the daily lives of multiple generations of Sámi women. The film contrasts the neutral landscapes that have remained constants of the region with the bright colours of the younger generation of women: a barren tree strung with colourful ribbons, a vibrant flamingo pool float moving down the river, a music box against rocky ground, plastic lawn chairs in serene white snow. We see how the daily lives and routines of these women have changed over time, but that they still have more in common than they might’ve thought.
Perhaps I have a stubborn tendency to stick to what I know, because in every film I watch, the dialogue stands out, for better or for worse. I left the venue pleased with the quality of writing observed in most of these works. Radio-JusSunná and Lyden-Elleray did a lot with very little; mundane daily routines and everyday anxieties were conveyed through few, skillfully-chosen words, offering novel perspectives on a topic as common as reconnecting with one’s heritage. While “TERROR/FORMING” leaned on Gen Z internet humour a bit too much for my liking, I can’t deny that Friday does know how to draw you into a story. A poorly-crafted script can’t be saved by even the most perfect of visuals, but these films didn’t disappoint.
