Decolonizing Documentary Spaces

Abstract

In this paper we consider how grassroots community partnerships can transform academic spaces into creative and interactive sites of Indigenous agency and advocacy. Focusing on two projects based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), we bring these initiatives into a discussion that takes into account the larger context of documentary filmmaking in the territory often referred to as Québec. We address how each project uses care and collaboration towards a practice of visual sovereignty. We start with a discussion of the First Peoples’ Postsecondary Storytelling Exchange (FPPSE), an Indigenous led, multi-institutional, five-year initiative using decolonizing film and research methods to understand the needs and aspirations of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis post-secondary learners. This multi-year project involved 22 communities, 10 nations and generated over 100 video stories. The group used talking circles, filmmaking, and community engagement as methods to validate indigenous ways of learning and teaching. The facilitators created safe space through the sharing of food, the attentiveness to languages, the foregrounding of shared decision making, interactive methods and more. Following this, we discuss Circle Visions, a settler-initiated partnership project based at Concordia, which has collaborated with the non-profit Wapikoni Mobile since 2016 to facilitate care-full creative spaces on the university campus for emerging Indigenous artists. This initiative features an annual cross-platform media-making Summer Institute for Indigenous filmmakers with workshops focusing on animation, experimental video, podcasting, documentary, and 360-degree / VR filmmaking as a tool for decolonization. We reflect on how we can activate decolonized documentary spaces within existing settler institutions and use care-full methods to unsettle hierarchies, promote well-being, and foster Indigenous productions. We then offer some context about the documentary traditions that we are building on within the place now known as Quebec.