A DAY AT MOUNTAIN CREE CAMP - celebrating over 50 years of indigenous sovereignty

Описание: The film follows a young social and cultural anthropologist, Georg Bergthaler, as he visits Mountain Cree Camp, an indigenous community living off grid in the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, which has become a haven for First Nations and Native American people from across North America seeking to reconnect with land based ways of life and indigenous spiritual heritage.

In 1968, more than 50 years ago, roughly 140 Maskwacis Cree left the socioeconomic turmoil at their Hebbema reserve to permanently move off grid into the wild foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains in hopes for a better life in the mountains, claiming their right as indigenous people as "legal squatters on crown land" to live on this land by following their ancestors' footsteps who have revisited these places since time immemorial.

To this day, the Mountain Cree are the only indigenous community in Canada that has no colonially imposed tribal government but chooses its leadership according to traditional ways and thus governs itself fully self-determined, providing a source of inspiration and hope for indigenous self-determination and sovereignty not only in North America, but the world.
The film was shot in September of 2017 and first screened at the Garifuna Indigenous Film Festival in May of 2020.

Special thanks to Reinhart Roan, Dale Zorthian, Riell T. Roan, Jason Zorthian, Charly Favel, Elisabeth Roan and Elmer Rattlesnake of Mountain Cree Camp for making this film possible and Steve Morin for introducing Georg Bergthaler to his relations and this unique place.