Hello
I read with interest your information on the upcoming film festival at
MIT.
I would very much like the opportunity to participate in the festival
and conference next year if at all possible. Please send me
information on how to be involved in theprocess of application.
Thanking you in advance and good luck at your conference. If you
wish to know anything about me, please speak to Alanis
Obomsawin.
Catherine Martin
Below is a bit of info on me, from a recent exhibit of a ten year
retrospective of my work, shown at Dalhousie Univ. Art Gallery.
Stories of the Spirit
"Catherine Martin is called a filmmaker in press material, but story-
teller
might be a better description. It's true the Mi'kmaw artist used a
camera
to make her first documentary, but the technology was simply an
extension
of the story-telling tradition that kept native culture alive through five
centuries of European domination."
Rob Mills, Halifax Mail Star, Sept. 28 1990
Catherine Martin is perhaps the most public of a group of important
First
Nations artists leading the Mi'kmaq cultural revival in Atlantic
Canada. A
talented singer and drummer who is often heard at ceremonial
functions and
openings, Martin's status as the most accomplished Mi'kmaw
filmmaker in the
region has been cemented by a series of important works that have
reached
wide audiences. Emphasizing key Mi'kmaq concerns such as
family relations,
living traditions in the arts, and the community's relationship with
the
land, Martin has examined contemporary First Nations life with
compassion
and courage. Films such as Mi'kmaq Family and Kwa'Nu'Te' are
shot almost
completely on location in sacred pastoral sites such as Chapel
Island or on
the Millbrook and Eskasoni reserves, fulfilling Martin's aim of
catching
Mi'kmaq life as it is lived in the present while honouring ancient
traditions that have been passed down from pre-contact times. Her
recent
films, such as Spirit Wind and the in-progress documentary on
Annie Mae
Aquash, signal a geographic broadening as Martin explores
Mi'kmaq links
with the North American family of First Nations in a grander, more
ambitious vision of aboriginal struggles and concerns.
The luminous Spirit Wind, Martin's longest and most recently
completed film, is the central work around which this 10-year survey
exhibition is gathered. The film follows Mi'kmaq Chief Mi'sel Joe
and his
crew as they build a birch bark canoe and paddle it from
Miawpukek First
Nation on Conne River in Newfoundland across the Cabot Strait to
Chapel
Island in Nova Scotia, in fulfilment of the Chief's vision of a journey
that might heal and strengthen his community. Initially planned as
a winter
building project with a spring crossing, it took three years and three
attempts before the journey was completed in 1999. Martin
produced,
directed, wrote and narrated the film, and also shot the footage
herself,
following the canoeists on an accompanying vessel, sharing many
of their
trials and frustrations, and their final joyful arrival. In October 2000,
Spirit Wind was screened in Washington DC and received an
international
award from the Smithsonian Institute. - the Andres Slapinsh Award,
given
annually to the best native northern filmmaker. This is the second
time
Martin has received this award; she also received it for Mi'kmaq
Family/Migmaoei Otjiosog, a film prompted by Martin's search for
Mi'kmaq
family values - a search that took on a new meaning after her
second child
was born. It won the Andres Slapinsh Memorial Prize for best
Indigenous
film at the 9th International Visual Anthropological Festival (Parnu,
Estonia, 1995).
Martin's interest in the visual arts, and their role in the healing
and revival of Mi'kmaq culture, has been evident from the beginning.
Her
first film was a 6-minute profile of Maliseet artist and feminist
Shirley
Bear. Minqon Minqon: Wosquotmn Elsonwagon (Shirley Bear:
Reclaiming the
Balance of Power), on which Martin collaborated with Kimberlee
McTaggart,
was one of the 16 short films collectively titled Five Feminist
Minutes,
produced by young female filmmakers from across the country
under the
auspices of the National Film Board's famous (and now sadly
defunct) Studio
D. It won a Moonsnail Award for best short documentary at the
1990
Atlantic Film Festival, and continues to be shown around the world
at film
and video festivals. The following year Martin co-directed
Kwa'Nu'Te':
Mi'kmaq and Maliseet Artists with McTaggart for the National Film
Board's
Atlantic Centre. Kwa'Nu'Te' won an Award of Excellence at the
1991
Atlantic Film Festival and was shown on CBC television in May
1992. It was
the winner of a Silver Apple Award in the Visual Arts: Profiles of
Artists
section of the National Educational Film and Video Festival,
Oakland,
California, in 1993. It is a visually rich and compelling film that not
only takes the viewer into the studios of contemporary native artists
and
craftspeople but also, through subtle interviews and luscious filming,
brings to life their spiritual insights. The engaging sound-track
includes
singing and drumming by Martin herself.
The National Film Board of Canada's Studio D nurtured a
generation
of female filmmakers who subsequently branched out on their own.
After
making Minqon Minqon and Kwa'Nu'Te', Martin and McTaggart
formed Matues
Productions ("Matues", pronounced Ma-doo-wes, is Mi'kmaq for
porcupine) and
produced an independent film titled Initiations, a short drama with
an
anti-drug and alcohol message for native youth. Since the mid-90s
Martin
has run Matues Productions alone, and has also collaborated with
other
independent filmmakers, such as Nova Scotian filmmaker Sylvia
Hamilton
(whose own Maroon Communications has been responsible for a
number of
important films on women's issues and black Canadian culture).
Martin and
Hamilton jointly produced a documentary called Champions for
Change for
Human Resource Canada's Black and Aboriginal Employment
Initiatives.
Martin's continuing concern for the social and cultural health of
her community is reflected in her many short film projects: Mi'kmaq
Storytelling (shown at the Atlantic Film Festival), produced for Nova
Scotia Native Women and the Nova Scotia Department of
Education's Literacy
Program; Atlantic Diabetes Study, an information video for Health
Canada;
Mi'kmaq Dreams, a 20-minute docudrama on prevention of solvent
abuse,
produced for the Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counseling
Association; and
a video focusing on the transfer of education from the federal
government
to the Mi'kmaq First Nations, called A New Beginning. Similar
works in
progress include The Final Journey, a video about a Mi'kmaq
person's
struggle with HIV/AIDS and Big Cove First Nations' " Seven Days of
Healing
and Mourning", a video about suicide and prevention.
This exhibition of the films of Catherine Martin marks ten years of
filmmaking - and ten years of story-telling in the best Mi'kmaq
tradition -
by this important artist. Martin's simple and direct style is instantly
engaging. She avoids the razzle-dazzle of technological special
effects and
rarely employs elaborate interpretation or polemics, letting the story
unfold naturally, with quiet affection and concern. The vital issues of
aboriginal deprivation and struggle are always there, but in Martin's
films
the negative is always balanced by the positive, and set within a
larger
narrative of creativity, hope and grace.
Susan Gibson Garvey
August 2001
Biographical notes
Catherine Anne Martin was born in Florida 1958, the daughter of
Mi'kmaq
parents from the Millbrook First Nation in Truro, Nova Scotia. She
graduated from Dalhousie University in 1979 with a BA in Theatre
and
obtained an MA in Education from Mount St. Vincent University in
1998. In
1990 Martin became Nova Scotia's first Mi'kmaq filmmaker with the
release
of the 6-minute documentary Minqon Minqon. In addition to her
award-winning
filmmaking (listed below), Martin has been director of the Atlantic
Indian
Arts and Crafts Corporation, and coordinator of the Mi'kmaq
Professional
Careers Project at Dalhousie University, and for a while taught
Native
Studies and co-directed the Transition Year Program at Dalhousie.
She
chaired the Society of Canadian Artists of Native Ancestry, was
one of the
original steering committee members of the Aboriginal Film and
Video
Alliance, the Nova Scotia Arts Council, and the Museums and First
Peoples
Task Force, and served on the Executive Board of Directors for the
Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. She also coordinated a
training
program for seven First Nations students in Non-linear Editing at
the N.S.
Community College in 1999. She is currently a counsellor at the
Native
Education Counselling Centre at Dalhousie University (a
partnership between
the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq and the University).
Filmography
Minqon Minqon: Wosquotmn Elsonwagon (Shirley Bear:
Reclaiming the Balance
of Power) Director/co-producer; documentary; 16 mm.; 6 minutes
45 seconds;
1990.
National Film Board of Canada, part of the Five Feminist Minutes
series
Kwa'Nu'Te: Mi'kmaq and Maliseet Artists
Co-Director/researcher/singer; documentary; 16mm.; 41 minutes;
1991.
National Film Board of Canada
Initiations
Director/co-producer/co-writer; independent drama; 16mm.; 10
minutes; 1994.
Matues Productions
Mi'kmaq Storytelling
Director/producer; documentary; Beta; 30 minutes; 1994.
Produced for Native Women of Nova Scotia and Nova Scotia
Literacy, Nova
Scotia Department of. Education
Mi'kmaq Family / Migmaoei Otjiosog
Director/researcher/co-writer/narrator/singer; documentary; 16
mm., 33
minutes; 1994.
National film Board of Canada
Mi'kmaq Dreams
Director/producer/writer/researcher; documentary; Beta; 20
minutes; 1997.
Produced for Native Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselling
Association for
Prevention of Solvent Abuse.
Atlantic Diabetes Study
Director; information video; Beta; 10 minutes 1997.
Produced for Health Canada
Champions for Change
Co-director/co-producer with Sylvia Hamilton; Beta; 25 minutes;
1998.
Maroon Communications; produced for Human Resources
Department of Canada.
A New Beginning
Director/producer/writer/videographer; 10 minutes; Beta; 1996
Produced for Mi'kmawey Kinamasuti/ Mi'kmaq Education Authority
Remembering the Old Mi'kmaq
Director/Videographer; documentary; VHS; 20 minutes; 1999.
Produced to accompany the exhibition Mikwite'lmanej Mikmaqi'k /
Let us
Remember the Old Mi'kmaq, organized by The Confederacy of
Mainland Mi'kmaq
and the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archeology
Spirit Wind:
Director/producer/researcher/writer/cinematography/narration;
documentary;
Beta; 50 minutes; 2000.
Matues Productions in association with Vision TV.
