Friday, June 18, 2010

Reel Injun: Playing in Regina

The following film is showing at the Regina Public Library at 9:00 p.m. Friday, 7:00 p.m. Saturday, and 9:00 p.m. Sunday. Reel Injun (PG) (Canada 2009, 85 min.)

''For decades, Aboriginal people were frequently represented in Hollywood films, but these depictions were almost always deeply negative and wildly inaccurate. Worse still, as the feature documentary Reel Injun carefully observes, this screen presence had a very real impact on Aboriginal people and on non-Aboriginal people's ideas of who they were.

Director Neil Diamond takes us on a highly entertaining road journey in which he interviews a broad range of Native actors, directors, writers, journalists and stand-up comics as they discuss how these negative representations affected their own self-image and how key positive images inspired them. Adam Beach and Clint Eastwood talk about Beach's critically acclaimed performance as an alcoholic war veteran in Flags of Our Fathers.

Wes Studi, one of the busiest Aboriginal actors in America, discusses the landmark casting of Chief Dan George in Little Big Man. Reel Injun also features a revealing interview with Sacheen Littlefeather, the Native actress who attended the Academy Award ceremony in 1973 on behalf of Marlon Brando, who declined his Godfather win to protest discrimination against Aboriginal people by the film industry and the American government.''

 - Toronto International Film Festival

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