Remembering Indigenous filmmaker Jeff Barnaby on National Canadian Film Day

15:11Remembering Jeff Barnaby

Today is the 10th annual National Canadian Film Day, a coast-to-coast-to-coast celebration of Canadian cinema. In honour of the occasion, CBC Gem is screening the late Indigenous filmmaker Jeff Barnaby's last film, Blood Quantum, for free online.

Barnaby was a Mi'gmaq writer and director from the Listuguj reserve in the Gespe'gewa'gi district of Mi'gma'gi (located on the southwest shore of the Gaspè Peninsula). The award-winning filmmaker and acclaimed visionary passed away in Montreal on Oct. 13, 2022 following a year-long battle with cancer at the age of 46.

He had a massive impact on film in this country over the course of his career. He often spoke up about the need for the Canadian film industry to do more for Indigenous creators — and there's no question that he made a difference.

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Michael Greyeyes both starred in Blood Quantum. They joined host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to remember their friend, and make the case for why people across the country should watch his film today.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Elle-Máijá, I am going to start with you. You're hosting a tribute to Jeff today. It's a part of Canadian Film Day. What do you remember feeling when you first came across his work?  

Elle-Máijá: Well, Jeff's work stood out from any other work that I'd seen by Indigenous filmmakers prior to that. He was a visionary…. I remember leaving the theatre after watching Rhymes for Young Ghouls and feeling like that was a transformative moment for Indigenous cinema and Canadian cinema as a whole. There had been so many barriers to access in terms of making feature films for Indigenous filmmakers in this country, and that film set a precedent and completely changed the landscape for the rest of us. He was on top of his craft, he knew what he wanted in every single frame. And he had a voice like no other.

WATCH | Official trailer for Rhymes for Young Ghouls: 

Elamin: I love that idea of walking out of a movie and going, "That's a voice that I'm interested in getting to know." Michael, do you have a memory of first encountering Jeff's movies and realizing he's doing something really special here?

Michael: Oh absolutely, I have the same response as Elle-Máijá. Except for me, it was his short film File Under Miscellaneous. I watched File Under Miscellaneous, and it literally knocked me on the seat of my pants. I had yet to see an Indigenous film that explored our culture and our ways of knowing and perspectives, in as visceral and funky and cool a way as Jeff did. And to me, honestly, it's still the best short film I've ever seen. I thought, "I just have to work with this guy. I don't know who he is, but whoever made this is a special filmmaker."

WATCH | An excerpt from File Under Miscellaneous:

Elle-Máijá: Jeff carried this sort of righteous and justified anger based on everything he'd experienced and witnessed in his life … and you feel it in all of his work. But he was so good at turning it into entertainment and making it accessible for the very people he was not necessarily criticizing but wanting to welcome to the conversation, and sort of present the ways that they're implicated in this legacy of colonialism.

And he was really funny. Jeff was so funny, and he was a cinephile. He loved movies. He loved the craft of filmmaking, and he had this brilliant way of taking that anger and turning it into something that audiences could feel a sense of entertainment and laugh and enjoy the experience, but also walk away recognizing that they were watching something or had watched something deeply politicized. And that came from a voice of someone with lived experience that justified that anger.

Elamin: In many ways, sometimes it's a bit more effective even to take the vehicle of entertainment and dress up the ideas, and then challenge people with them in that way.

Elle-Máijá: Absolutely. He didn't just make entertaining genre films, he made films that were deeply politicized.

Elamin: Michael, how present was that idea for Jeff in the way that he approached his role as a filmmaker, would you say?

Michael: He had a responsibility, you know? There's a lot of talk nowadays about accountability, and I felt that he actually lived it. He felt accountable for everything he was doing. He'd get really angry or frustrated with filmmaking because he knew that films are forever.

Filmmaking is a business. There's ways of doing things, and those ways of doing things emerge completely from a capitalist colonialist framework. And so even the act of making films made Jeff crazy — but he loved it, and there was immense joy in his craft. But at the same time, he was so frustrated because he knew that he had to be responsible to the survivors. I felt like he made his films for us just as much as he made them for non-Indigenous audiences.

Elamin: Elle-Máijá, I think it's hard to take the measure of a person's impact, but I'd like to ask you to try. What kind of difference do you think Jeff did by choosing to tell these stories?

Elle-Máijá: Oh, it's immeasurable. He loved his community. He loved the Mi'gmaq language. He loved Mi'gma'gi, the land. One of my favorite memories from working on Blood Quantum was visiting his community and going to the school. He made sure that all of us actors went to the school and met with the children from his community. It was just this wonderful experience to be able to see the place that he loved so much, and revered, and put into his work. 

He's someone that I deeply respected and admired, and can't thank enough for all of the work that he put in, because he paved the way for a lot of us. He broke down a lot of barriers, and also was just so unapologetic in the way that he worked, and was fearless. I think that we owe him a deep amount of gratitude for everything that he did for us. I can't help but think about all of the potential that was lost. I want to know what stories were left to tell.

Elamin: Michael, it's been a little more than six months since Jeff died. What do you still hold close from the time that you had with him?

Michael: I'm still stunned. I can't even believe I'm doing this interview, that we're talking about him as someone who's passed and is making a journey. So I guess I'm still disoriented. I'm still shook by his absence. I think the legacy that he's created is a really complex one. The films he made are so political — Rhymes for Young Ghouls, Blood Quantum. I think what he did so beautifully, at least in my memory, is the voicing of his writing. He always called himself a writer first and a filmmaker or director second.… I remember being on set going, "If I just say it like the way Jeff talks, I think this will come out right." And so when I hear [my character] Traylor, I hear Jeff. And that makes me happy, and saddens me at the same time.

WATCH | Official trailer for Blood Quantum:

Elamin: Thanks for sharing that. Elle-Máijá, Blood Quantum is being shown for free all day today on CBC Gem. Let's make the pitch. Why should people spend the time in the movie today, do you think?

Elle-Máijá: Because we have such a long way to go in this country. There's a lot of conversation about reconciliation, and I think Blood Quantum is a film that reminds us that Indigenous people have survived the apocalypse — and we continue to survive the apocalypse every single day in this country. I think a film like this invites viewers to reckon with that reality and reckon with that history and legacy. It's entertaining, it's wildly funny; it's like nothing else I've ever seen come out of this country or anywhere else. It's a testament to Jeff's abilities as a filmmaker, and he deserves to be remembered for his impact and his legacy. I really hope that people come and see this film. It has a massive place in Canadian film history.

Elamin: Michael, Elle-Máijá, I want to thank you for your time. Thank you so much for being here.

Elle-Máijá: Thank you.

Michael: Thank you.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jess Low.