Directed by Jennifer Dysart

Logline: A home movie of Cree woman hunting is saved from being lost forever, but how does it compare to official Canadian history of northern Manitoba?

Synopsis: In Caribou in the Archive, rustic VHS home video of a Cree woman hunting caribou in the 1990s is combined with NFB archival film footage of northern Manitoba from the 1950s. In this experimental film, the difference between homemade video and official historical record is considered. Northern Indigenous women hunting is at the heart of this personal found footage film in which the filmmaker describes the enigmatic events that led to saving an important piece of family history from being lost forever.

Distribution Contact: WFG

More Details

RUNTIME: 8 Minutes
GENRE: Documentary, Experimental
PRODUCTION FORMAT: 16mm, VHS, SD
LANGUAGE: English
LOCATION: Ontario
TECHNIQUES: Found footage
KEYWORDS: Hunting, Caribou, Women, Archives, Memory, Home Movies, Family, Manitoba, History, Indigenous, Indigenous Filmmaker, Female Filmmaker

Director's Statement: Caribou in the Archive (2019) is Jennifer Dysart's second film that delves deep into official Canadian archives to expose and counter how her Cree community at South Indian Lake Manitoba is represented in the official historical record. Her film Kewekapawetan: Return After the Flood (2014) was the first documentary in this series that uncovered invaluable black and white film showing meetings between Manitoba Hydro and the people of South Indian Lake in 1968 which initiated massive environmental disruption that erodes their traditional way of life.