The Canadian premiere of a feature documentary exploring the spiritual and cultural relationship between wild salmon and Indigenous people in northern British Columbia will be screened locally as part of this year’s Sault Film Festival.
Indigenous filmmaker Joy Haskell says her latest effort, entitled The Salmon’s Call, was made to show people how “important and vital” salmon are to her family back home in Tache, a community located in Tl’azt’en Nation territory.
Haskell drew upon the personal experiences of her family members, who taught her how to set nets to catch fish and prepare them in the smoke house at an early age, in order to tell the story through an Indigenous lens.
“When we fish, it’s for our cultural rights. It’s also a generational thing that gets passed down — how we fish, and how we prepare the fish, because my aunties taught me that that was also a bonding experience,” the filmmaker told SooToday.
“When we go into the smokehouse, aunties and cousins all gather . . . we’re in the smokehouse, cutting fish. That’s the time for us to bond and catch up for people who don’t live on the rez anymore.
“If we don’t have wild salmon, what happens to that?”
Haskell says The Salmon’s Call was also informed by going back to the rez to hear stories from her relations, who helped make her aware of the impacts that fish farms have upon the salmon stock — such as defects and abnormalities in the internal organs — and how the disruption in the natural cycle of the salmon has negatively affected the health of the ecosystem overall.
The documentary was in development for about two years, with Haskell and her film crew taking a year to complete production.
“Everything happens in the salmon’s timing and their migration route,” Haskell said. “Everything has to have its timing — a movie, you can just go out, have everything together and just film it in 13 days or something.
“But when we’re dealing with migration routes of wild animals, I’m on their schedule — I’m not on mine.”
While The Salmon’s Call deals with the negative impacts of fish farms, the hour-long film also shows the audience the culture of passing down traditional Indigenous fishing practices, and how Indigenous artists take inspiration from the salmon to create art.
Haskell says if she and her film crew had waited another year, her documentary wouldn’t be premiering at this year’s Sault Film Festival.
“This year, my rez didn’t have any fish,” she said.
“Never in my lifetime did I ever think that my rez would be without fish, because when I grew up, we had hundreds of fish. Our smokehouses and storehouses were full.
“I just never thought that we would ever be without it.”
The Salmon’s Call will be shown at the Sault Film Festival on Sunday, Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. as part of its Indigenous Stories block. A full rundown of events and showtimes can be found on the film festival’s website.
This post was originally published on here
