Screening of the documentary Call Me Human

Attend a screening of Kim O’Bomsawin’s documentary Call Me Human.  

On the trail of Papakassik, the master of the caribou, Call Me Human offers a glimpse into the history of the Innu people alongside Joséphine Bacon, a woman of great spirit who has devoted her life to passing on her knowledge and that of her ancestors.    

“Sauvage,” says Josephine Bacon, “means to be entirely free.” When elders leave us, a link to the past vanishes along with them. Innu writer Joséphine Bacon exemplifies a generation that is bearing witness to a time that will soon have passed away. With charm and diplomacy, she leads a charge against the loss of a language, a culture and its traditions.
Watch trailer

Information

• Free activity, in French, presented on Wednesday, January 24, 2024, at 6 p.m.
  
• Space is limited, reservation required. 
• Duration: 60 minutes
• Location: J. Armand Bombardier Theatre at the McCord Stewart Museum

Joséphine Bacon according to Kim O’Bomsawin 

Joséphine Bacon is a larger–than–life character. It suffices to rub shoulders with her for a while to probe the depth of her child’s heart. Throughout this great human adventure, which has become “a film,” each meeting gave rise to surprises, innumerable laughs, moments filled with sincerity and simplicity. At a time when we feel more and more openness and interest towards First Peoples, while a great lack of knowledge towards us persists, Joséphine seems to me to be an essential element of this reconciliation which is in the process of taking place. Joséphine stretches out her hand, is welcoming, does not judge. She is content to do what she knows to do best: transmitting the culture of her ancestors in simple words.  

About the director

A sociologist by training, Kim O’Bomsawin is an Abenaki documentary filmmaker. Since her first documentary The Red Line (2014), she has written and directed Quiet Killing (2018) about missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada and Teweikan Revived (2018), which returns to the roots of First Nations music, as well as the feature film Minokin: réparer notre justice (2020) about restorative justice.   

She is currently working on Nin Auass, an intimate and poetic portrait of First Nations youth (NFB), and It Takes a Village, on the return of births to remote Indigenous communities. She is also involved as content producer and director of the project Telling Our Story (Terre Innue), whose objective is to offer a decolonized vision of the history of the 11 First Peoples of Quebec. She is also co-writing her first feature-length animated film on Indigenous feminicide within the international co-production Ghostdance. In addition to these documentary projects, Kim gives lectures in schools and institutions on issues that affect First Peoples.