Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, provided by the National Film Board of Canada
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers’s 2021 Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy premiered at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival, where Tailfeathers won the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission states that education must go beyond formal institutions in order to remedy the gaps in knowledge that perpetuate racism. Education for change needs to be able to touch minds and hearts, and film has the power to do both.
Assini: challenging the meaning of ‘Indian’
Hollywood’s representation of Indigenous people over time has educated the general public through stereotypical and racist portrayals. But that’s changing.
In Gail Maurice’s film Assini, seven-year-old Assini says to her friend after watching a western, “Indians are stupid. They always get killed. Cowboys can kill seven with one shot.”
Assini later discovers that she herself is “Indian,” and at first rejects the label — unsurprising given what Hollywood westerns and dime-store comic books have taught her.
Upon reflection and the ever-present love of her grandmother, Assini comes around to the idea that “Indians rule” and that racist representations must go. She wins a stand-off with a “cowboy,” stomps on a comic book, cheers with her friends and calls it a day.
Assini shows that films can be a source of education that succeed in interrupting rather than reproducing racist stereotypes.
The work Assini does for viewers parallels the work the character Assini does in the short film. It analyzes popular forms of entertainment, such as movies and comic books, shows their consequences in everyday life — Cree and Métis characters in the film understand “Indian” as an insult — and creates a new ending, or, more accurately, a fresh start.
Assini challenges and exceeds the meaning of “Indian” as scripted by popular culture. The film makes abundantly clear the beauty of Assini’s wide-open childhood landscape, as well as the humour and love in her community.
This is education. There is so much to learn and unlearn.
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