Elle-MΓ‘ijΓ‘ Tailfeathers explains the particular kind of pain revelations about Michelle Latimer have caused the Indigenous film community
Iβm not under the illusion that the doors that have opened for me were just the result of hard work. Canada was founded on white supremacy, an ugly cannibalizing ideology that persists in every aspect of Canadian society today, including the institutions that have funded my films. Colour-ism is real. Maybe if I look, sound, and act just enough like the colonizers, theyβll throw me some scraps. That is how it is in the film industry at large.
The Michelle Latimer story isnβt just about her claiming Indigenous ancestry. This story is also about how Canadian institutions uphold white supremacy in who is given access to resources and who is not.
Institutions like Telefilm, the National Film Board of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, Bell Media, the Canada Media Fund, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporationβs have their own internal bias toward racialized Indigenous people. They look at people like Latimer and they see βone of the good onesβ reflected back at them and that is something they trust.
Over the last year, weβve witnessed a massive shift in the Canadian film industry, thanks to the hard work of the BIPOC community and their allies. The Canadian film industry is being forced to reckon with its white supremacy. And itβs clear that those that have been taking the lionβs share of the resources are not willing to give that up.
