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DOCUMENTARY FILM AND PHOTO

YINTAH (2024)

Co-director, Producer, and DOP of Feature Length Documentary

Streaming now on CBC Gem (88 minute version) and NETFLIX (Theatrical version).

Spanning more than a decade, YINTAH follows Howilhkat Freda Huson and Sleydo’ Molly Wickham as their nation reoccupies and protects their ancestral lands from the Canadian government and several of the largest fossil fuel companies on earth.

Director’s statement:

Mirroring the scope and ambition of the Wet’suwet’en fight to protect unsurrendered lands from theft, YINTAH offers the definitive account of a historic wave of Indigenous resistance to Canadian colonialism. Drawing from more than a decade of verité footage, the film shadows two Wet’suwet’en leaders (Freda Huson and Molly Wickham) as they reoccupy and protect their homelands in the face of state violence.

As filmmakers, we found that Canada protects its image through force. Throughout the years our camera operators were held at gunpoint, repeatedly arrested and detained, subject to illegal police exclusion zones, surveillance, harassment, and even incarceration. Despite this repression, YINTAH is a film where every consequential moment was captured, providing a remarkably cohesive account of a story that police worked hard to suppress.

As colonial forces conspired to criminalize Wet’suwet’en jurisdiction, we as filmmakers worked to uphold it. The result is a film which was compiled under the traditional laws and collective authority of the Wet’suwet’en house groups at the center of this story – developed with intensive participation from Wet’suwet’en leaders and co-directed by the immediate family members of the film’s protagonists. Adopting a decision-making structure which mirrors the practices of Wet’suwet’en self-governance, the film relied on collaboration and consensus-building to share this vital history from an authentically Wet’suwet’en perspective.

As a result, YINTAH is itself both an expression of Indigenous sovereignty and an attempt to decolonize history. With direction from Wet’suwet’en elders and dozens of community members, and aided by narration from the film’s protagonists, YINTAH offers an honest, uncommon, and unapologetic perspective of Canada’s brief time on Wet’suwet’en lands. In the words of Violet Gellenbeck, an elder and chief who participated in the filmmaking process: “For the first time it is our own people telling our history.”

Awards and Nominations:

  • Winner Best Feature Length Documentary Canadian Screen Awards
  • Winner Best Cinematography in a Feature Length Documentary Canadian Screen Awards
  • Winner Hot Docs Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Feature
  • Winner Hot Docs Audience Award
  • Winner Best International Documentary Feature Red Nation Film Festival
  • Winner Grand Prix Millennium Award at Millenium Docs Against Gravity
  • Winner Impact Grand Prix award FIPADOCS
  • Winner Etnomatograf Award at Millenium Docs Against Gravity
  • Winner Human Rights Human Wrongs award at Human International Doc FF
  • Winner Best Editing in Documentary Feature CCE Awards
  • Winner Special Jury Award at the Millennium Film Festival
  • Winner Best Documentary at Riviera International Film
  • Special Jury Mention for Elevate Award DOXA
  • Special Jury Mention for Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director DOXA
  • Finalist Social Justice Award Lane Doc Fest
  • Nominee for Cinema for Peace Dove International Green Film Award
  • Nominee Best Documentary Toronto Film Critics Association
  • Nominee Best Original Music in a Feature Length Documentary Canadian Screen Awards
  • Nominee Best Sound Design in a Feature Length Documentary Canadian Screen Awards