A “Golden Age” for Native Cinema

By Francesca Dziadek Reprint |    | Print | Send by email

BERLIN, Mar 11 2013 (IPS) - Indigenous filmmakers and audiovisual artists worldwide are celebrating their growing visibility, as native voices and stories edge their way onto the big screen, gaining international recognition both artistically and commercially.

“The importance of audiovisual media in forging identity is crucial.  Stereotypes and clichéd images of “natives and Red Indians” on TV and the big screen defined us for decades,” Jason Ryle, executive director of the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto, Canada, and one of the initiators of the Indigenous Filmmakers Declaration told IPS in Berlin.

The document, drafted at the First International Indigenous Film Conference in the northern Norwegian municipality of Gouvdageaidnu, Sápmi, in October 2011, is a pledge by indigenous storytellers to “manage our own destiny and maintain our humanity and pride as indigenous people through screen storytelling”, a powerful statement about cultural and intellectual property rights.

The conference was organised by the International Sápmi Film Centre (ISF), a body founded in 2007 to promote indigenous films and co-productions globally.

The full story is at http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/a-golden-age-for-native-cinema/