Indigenous Film Festival: Wildhood

7:30 PM
Ted Daigle Auditorium
Edmund Casey Hall

The 2022 St. Thomas University Indigenous Film Festival will open with Bretten Hannam's queer coming-of-age feature Wildhood (2021, 107 minutes), shot in the Annapolis Valley. Before the film, audiences will see a series of short films by Indigenous filmmakers Natalie & Carr Sappier and Tara Audibert. See the tentative lineup below.

About the Film
Two-spirit Mi’kmaw teenager Link (Phillip Lewitski) is just discovering — and asserting — his sexuality when his already volatile home life goes off the rails. His abusive father explodes after the cops bust Link and his half-brother Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony) for stealing scrap metal. When he finds out that his supposedly dead mother may be alive, Link flees with Travis in tow. Sparks fly in a chance encounter with teen drifter Pasmay (Joshua Odjick), who shares Link’s Indigenous roots and offers to help find his mother — but will Link’s (well-founded) mistrust of people ruin his potential new relationship and the group’s mission? Riffing on the road-movie genre, director Bretten Hannam charts Link’s growing self-awareness, which is deeply connected to the (re)discovery of his heritage. It’s been a while since a movie has fully relished in the bucolic Eastern Canada countryside. The landscape (Annapolis Valley in traditional Mi’kmaq territory) offers succour to Link and Travis — and opens them up to a very different world. Wildhood will elicit comparisons to recent Canadian titles like Firecrackers and Sleeping Giant, but the protagonists in those films were constrained by their age and limited choices. While Link and Travis aren’t free from danger, heartbreak, or disappointment, their lives are increasingly defined by possibility.

Please note: Wildhood contains scenes with nudity. Viewer discretion is advised.

TENTATIVE LINEUP: OCT. 28

Natalie & Carr Sappier

MAW  (10 minutes)

Sage In the City (7 minutes)

Tara Audibert

I am the warrior (7 Minutes)

Wahunt The Devil: Six Short Stories told by my Mom (7 minutes)

Final Mystery of the Fireball (3 minutes)

Bretten Hannam: Opening Film

Wildhood (2021, 107 minutes)

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