Workshop: Intersection of Academic Research and Documentary Film Practices; Screening: "kiskisiwin/remembering"

Description

This interdisciplinary workshop examines the interactions between documentary filmmaking and scholarly inquiry. Participants will scrutinize the ways in which scholarship and non-fiction film seek to represent knowledge and foster an understanding of stories being told within and beyond the academe. The workshop comprises brief pre-circulated readings and the screening of kiskisiwin/remembering by York scholars and filmmakers Martha Stiegman and Jesse Thistle. Workshop participants may elect to have their own projects, be they written or visual, incorporated in the discussion.

Film Synopsis: A young Métis historian takes down Canadian pioneer mythology, with a very personal account of the impacts that version of history has played in his life. In kiskisiwin/remembering, a jingle dress dancer, an 1850s blacksmith and a troop of defiant urban Indians assert Toronto as Indigenous territory and challenge Canadians to re-write their nation’s history.

Dr. Lilia Topouzova is a historian and a documentary filmmaker, whose interdisciplinary practice addresses the representation of trauma and forms of remembrances across different historical and contemporary settings. She is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS) at Concordia University.

Dr. Martha Stiegman is a documentary filmmaker and Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Indigenous struggles and settler solidarity have been the focus of Martha’s film work, and scholarship for more than a decade. She holds a joint doctorate in Communications Studies and Political Science from Concordia University examining Mi’kmaq Treaty and Inherent Rights.

Jesse Thistle is Métis-Cree from Saskatchewan. He is a Trudeau-Vanier Scholar and is currently pursuing a PhD at York University. Jesse’s work centres on trauma and memory within populations of Métis and Cree in Northern Saskatchewan, and the Algonquin of Timiskaming, Ontario.

Light refreshments will be served. RSVP to juliapyr@yorku.ca. Limited space available – you must RSVP in order to attend this event. Brief pre-circulated readings will be provided to participants.