THE BODY REMEMBERS WHEN THE WORLD BROKE OPEN
Directors: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers & Kathleen Hepburn
Kainai First Nation/Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation/Canada, 2019 | English | 105 min
Viewing available from August 27 – September 6
Two Indigenous women, unknown to each other, and from very different backgrounds, meet by chance. Áila (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) is middle class, university educated and light skinned. Rosie (Violet Nelson) is eighteen years old, poor, and has just been assaulted by her boyfriend. When Áila sees Rosie crying barefoot in the street, she makes the decision to help her. What follows is a complicated extended conversation between these two women as they navigate their similarities, differences and shifting power dynamics.
Tense and affecting, the film employs long takes and masterfully executed handheld cinematography to unveil a story in real-time, a story that at its core is a testament to the resiliency of Indigenous women. -imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Blackfoot, Sámi) is a filmmaker, writer, and actor. Raised on the Kainai First Nation (Blood Reserve), she is now based in Vancouver, BC. Tailfeathers was the 2018 Sundance Institute Merata Mita Film Fellow and is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Lab. Her short documentary Bihttoš (2014) was selected as one of the Top Ten Canadian Shorts of 2014 at TIFF and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open is her debut narrative feature
Kathleen Hepburn is a Vancouver-born writer and director whose debut feature, Never Steady, Never Still, premiered at TIFF in 2017 and was awarded Best Canadian Film and Best Director by the Vancouver Film Critics Circle, as well as Special Jury Prize at the Dublin International Film Festival. It went on to be nominated for eight Canadian Screen Academy Awards including Best Picture. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing, and a BFA in Film Production from the Universities of Guelph and Simon Fraser respectively. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open is her second feature, co-written and co-directed with Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.
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