Finding Our Talk 3: Chitimacha
Date: Friday, November 6th, 1:30 pm
        Carlson Theater

Michelle Smith has been producing and directing films since 1995. She has a particular interest in social, political and historical issues especially in relation to Aboriginal experience, cultural identity and intercultural relations. She just finished co-directing determiNATION songs, a documentary which follows three native artists engaging in political struggles through music, and recently  completed three short docs for Mushkeg Media’s Aboriginal language series, Finding Our Talk. She has directed feature length docs (Turbulent Waters), docs for series (Bizart, 109, Culture Shock) and most recently the experimental doc Buried Traces exploring her Métis ancestry. She has produced several films with Montreal based Productions Multi-Monde, including the animation,The Stray Dog (Le chien errant); documentaries Bledi: Notre pays est ici, When Strangers Reunite and A Time of Love and War (Lettres d’amour et de guerre). Her research experience includes both documentary series (Mother Tongue) and one-offs (Reel Injun, Okanagan Dreams,). She has taught a number of workshops and classes on documentary filmmaking and has recently worked with Métis youth in Winnipeg to produce a number of short videos looking at Métis identity and media representation.

The third season of Finding Our Talk 3 looks at innovative programs with an international perspective that includes episodes shot in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Latin and South America. Finding Our Talk 3: Chitimacha episode is directed by Michelle Smith. In this episode, Smith presents how the Chitimacha Nation of Charenton, Louisiana partners with Rosetta Stone, a language learning software company, to create teaching aids for a language that has no fluent speakers. Piecing together the language from old, wax cylinder recordings, this 1,000 member strong community is relying on its determination and thriving cultural identity to awaken the Chitimacha language from its long slumber.

Info & Photo Source: http://www.mushkeg.ca/projects.html