imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, with presenting sponsor Bell Media, announces the return of The Witching Hour: Late Night Shorts Program and the Festival’s feature length films and documentaries. Opening night of the festival will be, People’s Choice Award-winner at TIFF’s Midnight Madness, What We Do In The Shadows, on Wednesday, October 22 at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema with director, Taika Waititi in attendance.

The 15th anniversary of the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival will present feature length films from October 22-26, 2014 such as Black Panther Woman, about Marlene Cummins, an Indigenous teen full of political conviction, becoming a member Brisbane’s chapter of the Black Panthers, one of many in Australia in the early 1970s. As part of the Australia Spotlight, on Sunday, October 26, this powerful film will reveal how many Indigenous women paid a hefty price for their loyalty to a cause they thought was about equality for all.

Thursday, October 23 holds the World Premiere of The Lodge, a stunning stop-motion animation adopting equal parts Goldilocks and the traditional Anishnaabe legend of the Dandelion. The Lodge challenges colonial concepts of savagery, critiques the de-humanizing of Indigenous peoples and explores the powerful medicine of our animal relations. Later that night, the deadliness of Russian winters reaches psychologically destructive new ground in the International Premiere of A White Day by director Michail Lukachevskyi of the Yakut Republic.

Sterlin Harjo returns to imagineNATIVE Friday, October 24 after the Sundance debut of his first feature-length documentary, This May Be The Last Time. The film blends archival footage, gorgeous shots of the Oklahoma landscape and touching interviews with family and community members in an emotional tribute to both his grandfather's memory and the healing power of song. Later on Friday, October 24 a young Inuk man filled with talent and promise, is found dead while in RCMP custody during the riveting and emotional documentary, Sol. The film explores the underlying issues of youth suicide in Canada’s North while investigating the truth behind this tragic death. Also on Friday, the masterful documentary Olga – To My Friends presents a captivating story of a strong and complex woman whose only way of life is threatened as rumours spread that the reindeer brigade, which she watches alone in the dead of Russian winters, could shut down.

On Saturday, October 25 imagineNATIVE presents the Canadian Premiere of The Pa Boys. Driven by a hot reggae soundtrack, this film follows Three Maori flatmates who decide to form a band and embark on a pub tour “Down North” to Cape Reinga in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Along the way, laughs and adventures are had, but tensions also rise as friendships are tested. Later that evening, imagineNATIVE will screen the latest film by Alanis Obomsawin, Trick or Treaty?. This empowering documentary provides an examination into contemporary treaty issues, ultimately pointing to an inalienable truth: that all Canadians are treaty people and all are part of the solution.

Greenland’s history is not widely known and perhaps less known is the rock band Sumé and their remarkable impact on the formation of contemporary Greenlandic identity. On Sunday, October 26 an enlightening documentary, Sumé – The Sound of a Revolution, explores the power of language and song in shaping the destiny of an ancient nation. Later in the afternoon, Among Ravens shows a well-to-do family, and the complicated ties that tenuously hold them together, on their annual summer vacation. When an eccentric stranger arrives and forms a friendship with the young daughter, a critical lens is placed on the adults’ behaviour.

imagineNATIVE will also present the return of the ever-frightening The Witching Hour: Late Night Shorts Program on Friday, October 24 including: a night of sneaking out and selfies takes a dark and ultimately dangerous turn for two teenage girls in #nightslikethese; a woman is exhibited as part of a human zoo in the unsettling science fiction short Kepler X-47; frustrated at always being cast as a stereotypical Indian, actor Joe Whitehorse decides to take matters into his own hands in The Last Deaths of Joe; an aspiring inventor just can’t seem to catch a break in Fusion; performance artist James Luna recreates the facial expressions found on a series of traditional masks in Luna Become; a brilliant but obsessive inventor uses his wealth to create a perpetual motion machine that transcends time in George Bassler’s Perpetual Motion Machine; after foreign incursion into his territory kills off the wildlife his community survived on, a young Amazonian warrior starts hunting a new prey - white men - in O Homem Que Matou Deus (The Man Who Killed God); and a young disillusioned Martu man breaks cultural protocol by sharing photos of powerful rock paintings on Facebook and now must face the frightening consequences in Mamu (Ghost).

The 15th annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival will be held October 22-26, 2014.
All screenings will be take place at the TIFF Bell Lightbox unless otherwise stated.

Festival packages now available at http://imaginenative.org/home/packages
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