Denman Community Hall, Monday June 23, Doors at 7:00, film starts at 7:30.
A neglected and degraded marsh habitat badly needed restoration but in the process a very deep, very old fact came to light. This place was the site of an ancient village of the Sinixt people, a people declared extinct by the government of Canada in 1956, despite the fact that the Sinixt are not extinct and still present in their homelands today.
Marilyn James, a matriarch of the Autonomous Sinixt People and Lorna Visser, an environmentalist have created a documentary that highlights the critical need for both wetland restoration and the healing of relationships between settlers and the Indigenous Sinixt People who have lived—and continue to live—on this land.
“Snk’mip Dig Deeper is about one conservation group’s effort to come into right relationship with Autonomous Sinixt, the Indigenous People who are the rightful stewards of this təmxʷúlaʔxʷ. The film explains some of what happened to Sinixt People, how we lost our rights, how settler invaders took our land, how we continue to fulfill our responsibilities to the land regardless. Fundamental to building respect and trust, in a collaboration like doing this film, is that the truth has to be exposed. Indigenous Peoples have been speaking the truth for a long time, but the truth-telling also has to come from settler folks. It’s settler culture’s responsibility to own up to the truth, and you’ll see that in Snk’mip Dig Deeper. We’re not pretending everything is okay now because we’re doing ‘reconciliation’. It has to go a lot deeper than that — settlers as a whole have a lot more work to do. That’s why I directed this film, why it was important to me as an Indigenous person to make Snk’mip Dig Deeper: to educate people.”
—Marilyn James, Matriarch, Autonomous Sinixt
Co-Producer and Co-Director, Snk’mip Dig Deeper
To find out more go to : https://www.digdeeperfilm.ca/
