Keepers of the Fire  
Date: Friday, November 7th
12:30 - 2:15pm Carlson Theater                       

Metis filmmaker Christine Welsh has been producing, writing and directing films for more than twenty-five years and is known for her strong commitment to documenting the experience of Native women in Canada. Currently, Welsh lives on Salt Spring with her partner Tony and her donkey Honey. Her son Daniel is a young adult and aspiring chef in Vancouver, Canada. 

Her documentary Finding Dawn won a Gold Audience Award at the 2006 Amnesty International Film Festival in Vancouver, and it was screened at the United Nations in New York  for the 2007 International Women's Day. This wrenching, 70-minute documentary puts a human face on three of the estimated 500 Native women who have been murdered or gone missing in Canada over the past thirty years. Along the road to honor those who have passed, we uncover reason for hope. The film is named after Dawn Crey, a Sto:lo woman who went missing in November 2000 and whose DNA was found at the infamous Pickton farm in 2004. Ms. Welsh is not currently involved in any project; in her own words, "Finding Dawn took a huge chunk of my life and I'm still recovering and trying to spend more time with my family." 

Christine Welsh wrote and produced Women in the Shadows (directed by Norma Bailey), a one-hour documentary about her search for her Metis grandmothers which won the Best Documentary award at the 1992 Vancouver International Film Festival, was nominated for the 1993 Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television Gemini award for Best Documentary, and was broadcast nationally on CBC-TV's documentary showcase series Witness.

She also wrote, directed and co-produced Keepers of the Fire, a one-hour tribute to Aboriginal women's resistance which earned her the honour of being named co-recipient of the first Alanis Obomsawin Award for outstanding achievement in the Canadian Aboriginal film industry. Keepers of the Fire has been featured at major film festivals throughout Canada and the U.S. and has had special screenings at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Te Papa, the National Museum of New Zealand.

Source:http://www.straight.com