Origins - Festival of First Nations
Mohawk Girls - (16 May – Birkbeck College 3pm)
In Mohawk Girls, filmmaker Tracey Deer intimately captures the lives of three exuberant and insightful Mohawk teenagers as they face their future. Like Amy, Lauren and
Felicia, Deer grew up on the Native Reserve, but she left to attend school.
Now, she returns to document two critical years in the lives of these teens who are contending
with the unwritten rules of their close-knit community. To move away from the reserve means risking
the loss of credibility, or worse,
rights as a Mohawk. But to stay is to give up the possibilities offered by the "outside world."
With insight, humour and compassion, Deer takes us inside the lives of these three teenagers as
they tackle the same issues of identity, culture and family she faced a decade earlier. Interspersed
with home videos from Deer's own adolescence, Mohawk Girls is a deeply emotional yet
unsentimental look into what it means to grow up Native at the beginning of the 21st century.
- 63 minutes
- Director: Tracey Deer. Canada 2005. National Film Board of Canada
Venue 5: Cinema at Birkbeck College, 43, Gordon Square, London WC1
Screenings at Birkbeck are free, but places can be reserved.
www.lcace.org.uk
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