Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun

Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun

The connection Indigenous people share with horses is spiritual and incredibly special. Their history is deeply rooted in traditional ways of life. This film offers thrilling portrait of a young Siksika woman and the deep bonds between her father and family in the golden plains of Blackfoot Territory in Alberta as she prepares for one of the most dangerous horse races in the world…on bareback. A sport for the truly brave, Logan Red Crow is an Indian Relay rider who vaults from horse to horse in short, exhilarating races. She is a champion in the making. Besides her skill and sheer grit, Logan has a loving family, an elite group of horses, and a home on her ancestral lands. Those are invaluable, but this rider will need more for victory.

This film offers the dual pleasures of serenity and suspense: lyrical immersion in rural life alternates with thrilling race footage. As she pushes toward her goal, the connections between animal and human, family and community, ancestral tradition and contemporary life are profound and lasting.

Screening With:

There….

Student Short Showcase

Definition of “There”: there adverb (PLACE)

“There…” refers to an unknown country which the protagonist calls home. A borderless land with no features and nothing but soil. There is no architecture in this home, neither physically nor spiritually.
The soil represents an entity that embodies the potential for growth. It refers to the country, Iran; a place of multi-faceted possibilities.

In Persian literature, Iran is a feminine name and still many people are named Iran; a motherland which gives birth, wherein growth takes place. On Wikipedia, the most basic search on the internet, it states “a country is a distinct territorial body or political entity (i.e. a nation). It is often referred to as the land of an individual’s birth, residence or citizenship.” The short film draws upon the question whether the protagonist truly considers herself as the resident or citizen of that unknown land?

In order to be physically in this country, the protagonist is forced by the interviewer to be dishonest and doubt her thoughts. At the end, it is she who has to leave that land and carries “THERE” with herself.

7 mins
Canada, Iran, 2022
Dir. Rojin Shafiei
Language: Persian

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