Indigenous Film Festival: Blood Quantum

7:30 PM
Ted Daigle Auditorium
Edmund Casey Hall

The St. Thomas University Indigenous Film Festival will close with Jeff Barnaby's horror film Blood Quantum (2019; 98 minutes), shot primarily in Listuguj Mi'gmaq First Nation, on the border of Quebec and New Brunswick. Before the film, audiences will see a series of short films by Indigenous filmmakers Jennie Williams and Kennlin Barlow. See the tentative lineup below.

About the Film
The term “blood quantum” refers to a colonial blood measurement system that is used to determine an individual’s Indigenous status, and is criticized as a tool of control and erasure of Indigenous peoples. The words take on even more provocative implications as the title of Jeff Barnaby’s feature, which grimly depicts an apocalyptic scenario wherein an isolated Mi’gmaq community discover they are the only humans immune to a zombie plague. As the citizens of surrounding cities flee to the Mi’gmaq reserve in search of refuge from the outbreak, the community must reckon with whether to let the outsiders in — risking not only their own extinction, but also that of humanity. The severe and scathing portrait of post-colonial Indigenous life and culture that Barnaby previously captured in the acclaimed Rhymes for Young Ghouls here deftly collides with the iconography and violent hyperbole typical of the zombie genre. The undead are spectacularly and gruesomely dispatched via samurai swords, chainsaws, shotguns, and makeshift axes, while the living — a terrific ensemble cast led by Michael Greyeyes (Woman Walks Ahead and Fear the Walking Dead) — endure the paranoid pressures that such dire straits foment. In this iteration, however, Barnaby takes full advantage of the canvas zombie films regularly afford for cultural critique, exploring racism, colonialism, and the very real threat of extinction that Indigenous communities have experienced for generations. 

This film screening will be in memory of Jeff Barnaby, who passed away of cancer on October 13, 2022. 

Please note: Blood Quantum contains scenes of violence. Viewer discretion is advised.

TENTATIVE LINEUP: OCT. 30

Kennlin Barlow

August 18th, 2021/ 3:40pm- 4:15pm (6 Minutes)

Cerulean (6 Minutes)
Messages from Home (18 Minutes)

Jennie Williams
Nalujuk Night (13 Minutes)

Jeff Barnaby: Closing Film

Blood Quantum (2019, 98 minutes)

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The Indigenous Film Festival is a three-day event hosted by the Senate Committee on Reconciliation.