A Voice for Canadian Indians: An Indian Film Crew

From the newsletter of Challenge For Change / Société Nouvelle, Fall 1968

Eighteen films have been produced about Indians by the National Film Board, and all of them have been made by outsiders looking in on the situation.

Last year the Challenge for Change program included three more films about Indians. These three were not sponsored by any particular government department with a specific message. They were closer to depicting a truer perspective of the “Indian problem.” However, these films still lacked a real Indian point of view.

A number of people felt that the next logical step would be to involve Indians as filmmakers. With this in mind, Jerry Gambill (then associate director of the Company of Young Canadians) was asked to seek and recommend young Indian volunteers from across Canada.

In the spring of 1968, the NFB started training a number of people from the Extension Department of Memorial University, St John’s, Newfoundland. In order to expedite administration and avoid further tie-ups of professional personnel, the NFB proposed that the Indian crew be sent to Montreal to undertake the training simultaneously. The original plan was a crash course of six weeks, during which time the potential capability and aptitude of the crew could be felt out.

The NFB has anticipated selecting three or four people out of the original seven, but after the initial six weeks it was felt that all the crew merited further training. At the same time, the crew felt that this was the first time the knowledge, opinions, and feelings of Indians were being sought, encouraged, and appreciated by any kind of government agency.

As one phase of their training, the crew shot a film at St Regis Mohawk Reserve, Cornwall, each member of the crew serving in turn as cameraman, director, and interviewer. There was no script for the film, and each member of the crew expressed his own feelings as the work progressed, so that the end result was a collaborative effort in terms of the choice of subjects and how each was handled.

As a result of the individual interest and performance on this location, the members of the crew progressed to more specialized training in each field: Barbara Wilson and Tom O’Connor (camera), Noel Starblanket and Roy Daniels (sound and editing), Willie Dunn and Mike Mitchell (direction and production).

During the next phase, Barbara and Tom accompanied regular NFB location crews as assistant cameramen, Noel and Roy each edited a version of the St Regis footage, and Willie selected and shot footage on archival photographs depicting an Indian history of the West.

The interesting part about the final-cut copies of these two films was that, of all the St Regis film that was exposed, the dominant message projected was that of the laws of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy and the Longhouse concepts of peace and brotherhood.

Simultaneously, Willie was cutting his picture material to a song he composed and recorded about Crowfoot, a Blackfoot chief of the 1880s.

While the crew is operating in two groups doing practice shooting, we are also screening the two versions of the St Regis film in various Indian communities and filming the reactions and discussion among audiences. This latter practice will act as a prelude to future projects.

The crew has gone on and is presently developing the following project: Company of Young Canadians involvement in the Lesser and Great Slave Lakes area has volunteers seeking to develop communication between government and people.

A representative organization has been set up to discuss the needs of that area — that is, human resource development. But the machinery of democracy has creaked to a halt — communication broke down, action was deferred, and people were left with their definition of participatory democracy. Social protest marches and demonstrations are the only alternatives left to these people. The Indian Film Crew feels it would be valuable if we could become involved in this struggle. Our purpose? To facilitate communication between the people and the government — to help this Indian community.

Originally the Indian Film Crew project was a joint undertaking between the National Film Board and the Company of Young Canadians, the NFB providing training, production material, and facilities, and the CYC providing minimal living expenses, both in Montreal and on location. However, since the cutback in the CYC’s budget, they are now only supporting the crew in Montreal. The lack of funds for travelling has severely limited the crew’s activities.

Probably the most discouraging limitation has to do with our dissatisfaction with the present set-up — the CYC-NFB arrangement. There is discontent with lack of funds for location expenses; even though we are becoming semi-professional filmmakers, we exist on the barest of living expenses.

We are deeply interested in this communications medium and have discovered that we are dealing with a powerful outlet for emotion and a power that even administrations recognize. Because of our strong feelings about social change, governmental bureaucracy, Indians, etc., because we are a diverse group, because we are individualistic, there is difficulty in preventing the crew from splintering. But a greater danger is not that the group will splinter but that we may not be able to carry on our work with full independence.

Our future is not assured. Is a strong, independent voice for the Indians worth supporting?

Vive les sauvages libres!

Fraternally,
#115, Starblanket, Noel