Aux confluents de l’Akiawenhrahk
Soleils Atikamekw
Film screening with Chloé Leriche (director) and Jacques Newashish (actor)
Cinéma Beaumont, Méduse, Onyionwentsïo
May 8, 2024
To accompany the third discussion organized by the alliance, We wanted to explore the idea of relationality. We were looking for examples of successful Indigenous-non-Indigenous collaborations, and it was Nicolas Renaud who told us about Chloé Leriche's film Avant les rues (2016). Inspired by her approach, we seized the opportunity to present her new film Soleils Atikamekw (2023), which is in fact a continuation of the collaboration between the director and the Manawan community. It is her long-standing commitment to the community that has created a climate of trust, allowing her to tackle a drama that has left many scars.
The screening was followed by a discussion with the director and actor and multidisciplinary artist Jacques Newashish. Several members of the audience expressed their shock at the film, which sparked a conversation about police negligence in cases involving Indigenous people and systemic racism. Chloé and Jacques spoke to us about the many traumas currently experienced by Indigenous communities, the accumulation of numerous acts of violence against them (boarding schools, the 1960s scoops, murdered and missing women and girls, forced sterilization, and so on), both in the recent past and in the present.
Synopsis
Manawan, 1977. A vehicle falls into a river near an Indigenous community. Two Quebecers survive, but five Atikamekw lose their lives. While the police conclude that it was an accident, for the victims' families, questions remain unanswered. A historical, poetic, choral narrative, Soleils Atikamekw is inspired by the dreams, impressions, and memories of the five victims' loved ones. In an intimate and humanistic approach, the filmmaker involves the families both in front of and behind the camera. Documentary and fiction come together in a moving film about grief, injustice, and memory.
Chloé Leriche was born in Montreal in 1974. Self-taught, she has been writing, directing, editing, and producing her own films since 1999. At the same time, she has participated in several short films as a filmmaker-trainer and has accompanied First Nations youth in the creation of their works aboard a motorhome called Wapikoni Mobile. Her first feature film, Avant les rues (2016), was born out of these encounters. Produced once again in collaboration with the Atikamekw community of Manawan, Soleils Atikamekw revisits a period drama that has remained unsolved since 1977
Born in La Tuque in 1958, Jacques Newashish is a multidisciplinary artist recognized within his Nation and more broadly throughout the Indigenous ecosystem. Jacques Newashish has participated in several plays and film projects. As an actor, he has appeared in Chloé Leriche's Avant les rues, François Girard's Hochelaga terre des âmes, and Caroline Monnet's Bootlegger. On stage, he has appeared in the play Eskomina and in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, presented at the Théâtre du Rideau Vert.