A Letter From Cuba

Haida Gwaii Film Festival
March 6th to 8th, 2009
A  Handmade Festival
 

Dafne Romero, Festival Director with Cuban Filmmaker Arnaldo Diaz

The Haida Gwaii Festival started at the Haida Heritage Centre at Kaay Llnagaay  located at Skidgate with around 100 Films to be shown in a visual marathon over three days.
Local people engaged with the Festival long before. The opening started with a moment of dance and throat singing.
In his first's words Chief Roy Jones welcomed the videomakers that came from places such as Eastern Canada, France and Cuba to participate.  Mr. Jones thanked the young people from Masset that drove that snowed night to the Community Center and asked them to drive carefully in their way back home, those words opened his mind to old times and he reflected on how modern technology now permits people and cultures from distant places communicate.
He was very happy with the decision the organizers took to devote the Festival to the Haida people and made a touching tribute to the volunteers that had been working several weeks to support  the Festival.
The eyes of Dafne Romero at the head of the Festival were brilliant.  She had not slept at all in days, she was not surprised by the large scope of themes video makers offered blending environment, poetic ethnography with politics and humour.

Carita Bergman and Jaques Morin at the Box Office

She crossed her fingers and waited the verdict of people that filled the room. We were observing the audience reaction and talking what moves so many people to give up material security for a spiritual quest that stormy night.
She said "I can not ask more than that" taking a look to the large crowd that filled the place.
The Haida Film Festival had several golden moments aside from the screenings. One of them involved the French filmmaker Aïda Maigret Touchet and young people from the community in the video making workshop.  Another, the  contribution to the debate on Canada's seal hunt, made by artist Anne Troake, and the notions of ecology and conservation through the story of her extended family seen in her work. 

Filmmaker Aïda Maigret-Touchet and the youth filmmaker workshop

The screening of "Eating Alaska," the story of Ellen Frankenstein that took place  at the near Alaska, opened our eyes to that Northern landscape. As well, the support of local student volunteers with the unique and strong voice of the newcomers.
Dafne told me that the main success of the Festival was not the fact of taking the whole community out to socialize during all those cold days; it was in their interest in seeing different approaches of independent filmmaking around the world about men, society and environment. An 11 years old boy said to me that he will participate in next year's Festival. The future is coming. I hope I can see his work.

Arnaldo Diaz
diaz.arnaldo@gmail.com

Arnaldo Diaz (right) posing with Norm Sloan