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Aboriginal Access
Native stories often ghettoized
Despite strides by aboriginal filmmakers in recent years, their
work continues to be marginalized in programming ghettos, according
to panelists at yesterday's Aboriginal Voices session.
James Fortier, of the USA, went even further. "Marginalized?
Are you kidding? That's too kind a word," he said of the situation
in the USA. "I'd say we've been isolated and our stories stolen,
re-interpreted and misrepresented."
In Australia, aboriginal production is flourishing under a strong
system of financial support, said Mitch Torres. But programs, she
said, are often lumped together in aboriginal "showcase weeks"
that invariably run during periods of low viewership. "It scares
off a lot of viewers," she said. "People say it is just
too much of the same type of programming."
Marrie Mumford, artistic director of the Aboriginal Arts Program
at The Banff Centre, praised the Festival for devoting an entire
session to aboriginal programming. Panelist Jim Compton, director
of programming for Canada's Aboriginal People's Television Network,
agreed. When he attended three years ago, he said he felt native
voices were "tokenized" at the festival. "Now we
are front and centre at the Opening Ceremonies. We are not marginalized
anymore," Compton said.
Native programming on network television, however, remains ghettoized,
the panelists said. The situation appears bleakest in the USA, where
Fortier said both funding and access for aboriginal storytellers
is more difficult than it is in other countries. "Native people
in the States are more under-represented than in Canada," he
said. Worse yet, he said, "Native people telling native stories
from a native perspective are really under-represented." He
said it's easy to get funding if native producers sacrifice control,
but difficult otherwise.
That perspective is important, said Gil Cardinal of Canada. "The
issue is, who's doing the telling?" he said. When native storytellers
are in control, aboriginal people are "subjects," he said.
When non-natives are in control, aboriginal people become "objects."
Cardinal showed a clip from his groundbreaking drama Big Bear, in
which the Indians spoke English and the whites spoke gibberish.
His purpose, he said, was to have viewers identify with the Cree
characters by having them relate to them through language.
Panelists grappled with the thorny issue of subtitles. Torres said
she felt compromised when her broadcaster insist she subtitle accented
English spoken by a Creole, but others said it was a small price
to pay to reach wider audiences and increased the potential for
international sales. "I think you have to ask, who is your
audience?" Cardinal said.
Of the countries represented on the panel (Australia, Canada, USA),
Australia appeared to have the greatest access to money. "It's
relative easy," Torres said of funding. "We're a bit different
than Canada in that we don't seem to have to scratch up money."
As a result, aboriginal filmmaking is flourishing, but it needs
to break through to the next level, from documentary to drama. "We
still tend to produce a lot of soft stories. We need to make more
serious drama," she said.
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