FNMI exam review

• Modernizing representation in film

  It's about much more than just inclusion. What you see on TV has a tangible effect on what you believe you can do, and who you believe you can be.
• Thomas King: 'We've given away a great deal, we've had a great deal taken from us, and, if we are not careful, we will continue to lose parts of ourselves—as Indians, as Cree, as Blackfoot, as Navajo, as Inuit—with each generation.'
• For years, invisibility has been the rule for Indigenous Americans in pop culture. Until the first-season premieres of Rutherford Falls and Reservation Dogs in 2021, Indigenous people had been virtually absent from television both in front of and behind the camera – less than 1% of all TV roles during the 2019-2020 season, only 1.1% of working TV staff writers and 0.8% of employed screenwriters, according to the 2021 Hollywood Diversity Report by UCLA.
• MUCH OF THE CANADIAN film industry has been undermined by an excessive and irritating fixation on what it means to be "Canadian."
• When TIFF compiled a list of the best Canadian movies, in 2015, half of them were made in Quebec—essentially another nation with its own sense of place and culture, as well as a significant amount of funding for French-language feature films.
• Anglophone Canada has trouble telling the country's story, perhaps because it's hard to decide exactly what that story is or what it means.
• Canada's "storytelling issue"—and he says it exists because of Canada's colonial past. The Canadian narrative has long emphasized settler history while eliding or ignoring the history of Indigenous peoples.
• This is in part due to racism or disinterest, but it is also because acknowledging Indigenous history and narratives requires fundamentally reframing what it means to be a Canadian
• Seven Sacred Laws


  An inspiring documentary on the ancient universal values of the Anishinaabe People of Turtle Island (North America)
• Director and writer Nihad Ademi provides his moving account of the Seven Sacred Laws as important guideposts to inspire our conduct as human beings and bring us back into a relationship with Mother Earth.
• Seven Sacred Laws helps us to redefine who we are and where we are going in this age of growing conflict, dislocation, and environmental calamity.
• Biidaaban


  A 10,000-year-old shape-shifter and friend known as Sabe, who accompanies Biidaaban on a mission to reclaim the ceremonial harvesting of sap from maple trees in an unwelcoming suburban neighbourhood in Ontario.
• Smoke Signals


  Arnold (Gary Farmer) rescued Thomas (Evan Adams) from a fire when he was a child. Thomas thinks of Arnold as a hero, while Arnold's son Victor (Adam Beach) resents his father's alcoholism, violence and abandonment of his family. Uneasy rivals and friends, Thomas and Victor spend their days killing time on a Coeur d'Alene reservation in Idaho and arguing about their cultural identities. When Arnold dies, the duo set out on a cross-country journey to Phoenix to retrieve Arnold's ashes.
• The late 1990s were a goldmine for independent cinema, with financiers and distributors willing to gamble on diverse material in the wake of "Pulp Fiction's" breakout success.
• "Smoke Signals," marketed by Miramax as "the first feature film written, directed, and produced by Native Americans," was a critical success and crowd favorite
• Smoke Signals is revered as an important film for its storytelling. It tells a familiar story but from an underrepresented point of view, proving that a fresh perspective can help long-established expectations.
• Smoke Signals brought the natural Indigenous humor that comes with all moments in life's journey for better or for worse
• Reservation Dogs came out, following the comedic adventures of four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma after the death of one of their best friends.
• Reservation Dogs has become widely acclaimed, winning 8 awards and being nominated for 43, including a Primetime Emmy.
• Why is it important when it comes to "who" is telling the story?

  In simplest terms, what are the stories that get past down from generation to generation? What purpose do they serve? Explain the importance of people understanding there are "Indigenous People" and "People who are Indigenous". How/Why is being able to share cultural worldviews and stories important?
• Beans


  Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and reckless adolescence; forced to grow up fast and become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.
• Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)


  Won the Caméra d'Or at the 2001 Cannes film festival and has been called the best Canadian movie ever made. Atarnajuat is the eponymous main character, a legendary Inuk hunter who gets wrapped up in a complex drama of romance and revenge brought on by a spiritual disturbance. The movie's retelling of Inuit legend has an epic quality that is immanent in the landscape, language, and culture of Igloolik, where Kunuk lives, works, and hunts animals—including walruses.
• The government has signaled that Indigenous films are a priority. Heritage minister, Mélanie Joly (2019), announced last June the creation of the Indigenous Screen Office, a collaboration between multiple agencies and partners, including APTN, the NFB, Telefilm Canada, and Vice Studio Canada, that is meant to develop Indigenous screen-based content.
• In doing so, the government has just begun to redress an absence that went often unnoticed except by those it most affected: the lack of Indigenous stories, faces, and voices that are true to the people being represented onscreen.
• Thomas King: 'So, let's agree that Indians are not special. We're not … mystical. I'm fine with that. Yes, a great many Native people have a long-standing relationship with the natural world. But that relationship is equally available to non-Natives, should they choose to embrace it. The fact of Native existence is that we live modern lives informed by traditional values and contemporary realities and that we wish to live those lives on our terms.'
• Education and Language
• Education and Language
• Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC)


  Created through a legal settlement between Residential Schools Survivors, the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit representatives and the parties responsible for creation and operation of the schools: the federal government and the church bodies
• TRC's mandate


  1. Inform all Canadians about what happened in residential schools

  2. Document the truth of Survivors, their families, communities and anyone personally affected by the residential school experience
• Parties involved in TRC

  • First Nations, Inuit and Métis former residential school students
  • Their families
  • Communities
  • The churches
  • Former school employees
  • Government officials
  • Other Canadians
• Federal government eliminates discrepancy in education funding


  For First Nations children being educated on reserves and those being educated off reserves
• Developing culturally appropriate early childhood education programs

  For Aboriginal families
• Creating university and college degree and diploma programs

  In Aboriginal languages
• Principles of Aboriginal Languages Act

  • Aboriginal languages are a fundamental and valued element of Canadian culture and society, and there is an urgency to preserve them
  • The preservation, revitalization, and strengthening of Aboriginal languages and cultures are best managed by Aboriginal people and communities
• Making curriculum on residential schools, Treaties, and Aboriginal peoples' historical and contemporary contributions to Canada mandatory

  For Kindergarten to Grade Twelve students
• Requiring denominational schools to provide education on comparative religious studies


  Including a segment on Aboriginal spiritual beliefs and practices developed in collaboration with Aboriginal Elders
• Decolonization


  Can be co-opted by universities and sometimes doesn't create actual change inside the institutions
• What decolonization can mean

  • Building capacity in strategic areas to support Indigenous programming
  • Recognizing and supporting Indigenous scholarship and traditional knowledge
  • Integrating Indigenous knowledge into curricula across academic programs
  • Developing training and guidelines for Indigenous research and work with Indigenous communities
• Indigenization


  • Requires non-Indigenous people to be aware of Indigenous worldviews and to respect that those worldviews are equal to other views
  • Incorporating Indigenous worldviews, knowledge and perspectives into the education system, right from primary grades to universities
• There is not a homogenous Indigenous worldview and each Indigenous nation or community will have its own worldview