Beatriz Baleeiro
The film was anchored by the Indigenous Transmedia Fellowship, a program that is composed of media students from a manifold of cultural backgrounds.
Native Enough was created by students in Humber’s Indigenous Transmedia Fellowship (ITF) which brings together five Indigenous students across the college to create a media work.
Five fellows combined their skills to work on a film to give more visibility and hope to Indigenous youth.
Sound designer and film scorer, Matthew Magneson said, “The message that we are hoping to send to people who see the film is that identity shouldn’t be quantified by how you look.”
Sage Petahtegoose, the creative producer, acted as a mentor to the fellows, directly working with the group during the development of the project until it was ready to be submitted to Nuit Blanche.
“We face a lot of adversity but we don’t always get a chance to respond to it, and a lot of factors play into Indigenous people’s unique experiences, so this piece is to address some of what we face from mainstream society and our own communities. A lot of it is tied to self-worth, and self-acceptance of our Indigenous identities,” she said.
Humber Indigenous’ Instagram said the film represents the societal and inner pressures of what it means to be an Indigenous person today.
Mykelti Knott, an Advertising and Graphic Design student at Humber Lakeshore campus, worked on the movie as a camera operator, developed the release poster, and assisted as editor in post-production.
“As a team, we all conceptualized the project and co-wrote the script. This was a large part of the project because we wanted to ensure that we were being true to ourselves and our stories while also maintaining our common ground within these stories,” she said.
The group started to develop the project in June, and due to the pandemic, they relied on zoom calls to work on the film until they finally met in person at the end of August to start filming.
“This in itself posed some challenges because we were all just getting to know each other through Zoom and it was hard to ‘read the room’ when we are meeting at a distance,” said Knott.
Petahtegoose said she felt that it was important to create meaningful work that spoke to their experiences as young people and that the Indigenous Transmedia Fellowship, being the first of its kind to focus on Indigenous visibility, seemed like the right opportunity to inaugurate it.
Knott said the film intends to stress that being indigenous is about being contemporary.
“We do not all look the same and we are all at various stages of learning about our culture and traditions. The movie allows us as Indigenous people, to be an example of what can be achieved through taking a chance and allowing others to experience our stories,” she said.
The film ‘Native Enough’ is one of the five exhibits made by Humber students at Nuit Blanche this year.
“I have been told by so many people that I am not Indigenous enough whether that be based on my skin colour or the missing knowledge of my traditions. We shouldn’t feel ashamed of things that were never taught to us,” Matthew Magneson said.
Talks, podcasts, live streams, Nuit History, and augmented and virtual reality artworks are included in the programming. All are available to be enjoyed safely from home.
To prevent the spread of COVID-19 Nuit Blanche remodeled their fifteenth event and turned it into a virtual experience that runs Oct. 3 – 12.