IAS Film Series: Monkey Beach
Monkey Beach
(Loretta Todd : Kitamaat, British Columbia, Canada : 2020)
Wolfensohn Hall
Wednesday, November 30, 4:30 p.m.
Following the film there will be a Q&A with the film's director.
Loretta Todd's 2020 film Monkey Beach is an adaptation of the prize-winning novel by Haisla and Heiltsuk writer Eden Robinson. Filmed on location in Kitamaat, the home of the Haisla people, located far north of Vancouver, Monkey Beach opens with slow panoramic vistas of the land and sea, establishing the land itself as one of the main characters. The film follows Lisamarie (Grace Dove), who leaves Kitamaat for Vancouver in part to escape the ghosts and shapeshifters she has encountered since childhood. Returning to Kitamaat after experiencing disturbing premonitions about her brother Jimmy (Joel Oulette), Lisamarie confronts her own past as well as that of her community: this includes the devastating impact of residential schools on her family, including her beloved Uncle Mick (Adam Beach). Monkey Beach is a film about relationships -- human and animal, present and past, material and spiritual -- that offers a vivid glimpse of Haisla lifeways and traditions.
Podcasts about the book, the second features Loretta Todd.
https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/35
https://www.megaphonic.fm/spouter/35b