For the first time ever, this year’s 21st edition of the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival set to take place entirely online, from October 20 – 25, 2020, will open with a shorts film program. Throughout the Festival four short programs will be screened, each named after one of the four colors in the medicine wheel. For the Opening Gala on Tuesday, October 20, imagineNATIVE begins in the YELLOW quadrant and will feature a gathering of international short films, standing together. The short program YELLOW is composed of works created by artists from seven different nations: Êmîcêtôsêt: Many bloodlines by Theola Ross (Cree); Between Two Lines by Jack Steele (Wiradjuri); Te Wao Nui byNgariki Ngatae (Māori); Nuxalk Radio by Banchi Hanuse (Nuxalk); Audrey’s Story by Michelle Derosier (Anishinaabe); Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu (Kanaka Maoli); and The Fourfold by Alisi Telengut (Mongolian, Telengut). The fluidity of the works in YELLOW speaks to the artful nuance of Indigenous Cinema.

On Sunday, October 25, the Closing Night Gala will be the Canadian premiere of Compañía by Bolivian director Miguel Hilari. Compañía follows the daily rhythms of a small mountain community as we witness the return of community members from the city to honour the dead. From the individual to the community, the land to urban spaces, and traditional to ancestral, Compañía provides a deeper understanding of perspectives of home and migration. Compañía stretches notions of Indigenous Cinema using documentary, experimental, and visual poetry.

With the community as a priority, the 2020 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival will be guided by Indigenous practices of gifting and reciprocity, To Gift. imagineNATIVE will be ‘gifting from the spirit and for the spirit’ with daily draws for physical and digital giveaways throughout the Festival, highlighting Indigenous artists, goods, and companies.