Standing with Standing Rock: Film and Q&A with Michelle Latimer

Please join the Ryerson Aboriginal Education Council and Cinema Politica Ryerson for the screening of SACRED WATER: STANDING ROCK PART 1 and RED POWER: STANDING ROCK PART 2, followed by a discussion with filmmaker Michelle Latimer.

WHEN:
Wednesday, Feb 13th
6:15pm: refreshments served
6:45pm: FILMS SCREENING
8:45pm: Discussion with Michelle Latimer

Event is FREE and ALL are welcome.

LOCATION:
Room RCC-204 inside the Ryerson Rogers Communication Centre at 80 Gould St. in Toronto
*This venue is wheelchair accessible.

THE FILMS:
The people of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation of North and South Dakota are fighting to stop a pipeline from being built on their ancestral homeland. The Dakota Access Pipeline would snake its way across four states, bisecting sacred Indigenous sites and burial grounds along the route. The tribe fears that a leak could contaminate the Missouri River and spell disaster for the Great Sioux Nation. But water protectors are standing up in unprecedented numbers to preserve their way of life for future generations and to defend their sacred water.

Michelle Latimer’s SACRED WATER and RED POWER follow the largely matriarchal movement that initiated the fight that expanded into the great resistance and (though temporary) success of what we know as the Occupation of Standing Rock by 5,000 Red Warriors, while crucially educating audiences on the context of the lengthy colonial history leading up to it.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:
A Métis/Algonquin filmmaker, actor, and curator, Michelle’s goal is to use film & new media as a tool for social change. She is interested in exploring how sound and image can transform space to create a visceral experience that lends itself to greater cultural awareness and understanding. Her films have been described as “visual poems exploring humanity”, and are often experiments of creative form expressed from a personal point of view. While her work is informed by her own Indigenous heritage, she is most concerned with how global communities express views of individual, collective and other, and how cultural identity is articulated through these evolving perceptions.

HOSTS:
The vision of the Ryerson Aboriginal Education Council is to ensure that the next seven generations of Aboriginal people will have greater opportunities and success in education at Ryerson University through initiatives that are driven by Aboriginal needs and values. The goal of the Council is to participate in the process of developing a new relationship of truth and reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people at Ryerson and in the community at large, based on knowledge and respect.

Cinema Politica Ryerson hosts and disseminates political screenings as a platform for critical community and student engagement to provoke and advance Ryerson's social justice culture. We have an open, inclusive, accessible membership base hosting documentary screenings throughout the academic year that

Information on the other partners in this event to come!