A nationally-known filmmaker brought her creative knowledge to Hay River last week.
Melanie Jackson, a Saskatoon-based film and animation director, writer and producer best known for her unique Indigenous stop-motion series Wapos Bay, was in town on Aug. 9 for the Aabiziingwashi Indigenous Cinema Tour.
The stop involved a workshop for youth on culture and filmmaking at Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre and a later free screening of three films.
"It was more than I was expecting," said Jackson of the visit. "The warm reception from the youth here in the community and just people coming to the screening, even though it was kind of short notice. It worked out good."
She said about 14 young people participated in the workshop, which began with an elder talking about culture and concluded with Jackson speaking about her work.
"I spoke about my experience in filmmaking and how I feel that they can approach filmmaking from a creative viewpoint from having the idea in their head to getting it out on screen," she said.
Jackson said the young people asked her why she chose filmmaking and why stop-motion animation.
"I chose filmmaking because I had a story to tell and filmmaking is something that I could control to ensure that that story is told correctly, and stop-motion is the story that I want to tell and I can control, but I'm taking that time to ensure that I am telling it correctly," she said.
Jackson's series Wapos Bay appeared on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) for 10 years before concluding with a movie of the week in 2012.
She now has a new stop-motion show on APTN called Guardians Evolution.
Florence Brown, the executive director of Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre, said it was good to have Jackson visit, especially for the youth.
"They were very, very happy," Brown noted. "They were talking about it afterwards and they were saying that they didn't realize that they could take all of these different scenes that they showed, like the puppetry and the clay animations and real life actors. They thought it was just going to be like a cartoon."
On the evening of Aug. 9, there was a screening of Jackson's short film Dancers of the Grass and also the episode The Elements from Wapos Bay.
In addition, the film Mohawk Girls from director Tracey Deer was shown.
About 10 people showed up for the screening.
The Aabiziingwashi Indigenous Cinema Tour – aabiziingwashi means "wide awake" or "unable to sleep" in Anishinaabe – is presented by APTN and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
It is an initiative to bring the NFB collection of over 200 Indigenous-helmed films out to the public in mostly free community screenings from coast to coast.
The stop in Hay River was Jackson's first and only planned appearance on the tour.
"The Wide Awake Tour comes out of the Truth and Reconciliation talks that have gone across Canada, but the National Film Board feels that without reconciliation you have to speak the truth first," she said. "So having this huge library of Indigenous work from across Canada, they felt that that's where the truth really begins is all of the footage, and all of the stories that were told on video or film that are captured inside their library are part of that truth that has to be told so that feelings and emotions can be reconciled across Canada."