The Road Forward: an innovative documentary explores Indigenous activism through songs

The Road Forward is part documentary and part musical. 

That means you learn about pivotal moments in Indigenous history through gorgeous ballads and song stories. Marie Clements wrote and directed this new musical documentary, which premieres at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto this Sunday. 

Clements says the idea originally came from browsing years of newspaper headlines from Native Voice, an Indigenous paper from British Columbia. "I just started writing different lyrics based off of different headlines and stories that hit me," she explains, of her process. "From there, I looked into my composer friends and we started riffing on this idea of bringing words and music together."

Today, Clements speaks to Tom Power about tell stories through song, Indigenous activism and what conversations she hopes to spark with her latest film.

For more information about screenings for The Road Forward at Hot Docs, head over to their website.

— Produced by Beza Seife