Edmonton actor and filmmaker Cody Lightning’s directorial debut Hey, Viktor! has been announced as the closing film of this year’s imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.

The festival’s lineup, announced Friday (Sept. 15), includes a total of 14 feature films, 70 short films across 11 short film programs, 21 digital and interactive works, and 17 audio works from around the world, spanning 74 Indigenous nations and 40 Indigenous languages, according to a news release.

Hey, Viktor! (North Country Cinema), which made its world bow at the Tribeca Film Festival and its Canadian premiere at the recently concluded Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), is written by Lightning and Samuel Miller, who is also a producer alongside Blackhorse Lowe, Joshua Jackson, Kyle Thomas, Sara Corry and Blake McWilliam. The existential comedy stars Lightning as a former child actor who attempts to revive his career.

The film is one of six Canadian features selected for the festival, including writer-director-producer Shelley Niro’s Café Daughter. The coming-of-age drama is inspired by true events and based on the Kenneth T. Williams play of the same name, and follows the story of a Chinese-Cree girl growing up in Saskatchewan. Freddie Films’ Floyd Kane and Amos Adetuyi of Circle Blue Entertainment are also producers on the film, while Keith Lock is executive producer.

Another Canadian narrative film selected is Tautuktavuk (What We See) by directors Carol Kunnuk and Lucy Tulugarjuk, which is a “dramatic based-on-true-events narrative” centred on the lives of two sisters at the height of the pandemic, and written by Tulugarjuk, Kunnuk, Samuel Cohn-Cousineau, Gillian Robinson, and Norman Cohn. Producers on the film include Tulugarjuk and Jonathan Frantz, while Zacharias Kunuk, Mandeline Ivalu, Susan Avingaq and Norman Cohn are executive producers. The film made its world premiere at TIFF.

The lineup also includesIshi by director and multidisciplinary artist Dana Claxton, which is described as a “hybrid feature documentary.” The film looks at the massacre of the Yahi people from the Nation of Deer Creek following the California gold rush in 1849 through the story of an Indigenous man Ishi. The film is based on the performance piece of James Luna and is produced in collaboration with Claxton, Luna, Heather Haynes and Jeneen Frei Njootli.

Rounding out the Canadian features are two documentaries: Jules Arita Koostachin’s WaaPaKe and I’m Just Here for the Riot by directors Asia Youngman and Kathleen Jayme.

WaaPaKe is produced by Teri Snelgrove, while Shirley Vercruysse is the executive producer, and tells the stories of the survivors of residential schools through the lens of individuals who directly or indirectly experienced intergenerational trauma. I’m Just Here for the Riot follows the riots that broke out after the Vancouver Canucks lost the 2011 Stanley Cup final. The film is produced by Michael Tanko Grand, James Brown, Gentry Kirby and Mike Johnston and made its world premiere at Hot Docs earlier this year.

Youngman’s short film N’xaxaitkw is one of 25 Canadian shorts selected for the festival, running in the Into the Unknown program alongside Adriel (Strenneth) Rosenfeldt’s Memories, Barry Billinsky’s Home, and Madison Thomas’s Starbound.

Billinsky’s short Whistling Woods, is also among the selections, as well as Eva Thomas’ Redlights, Terril Calder’s A Bear Named Jesus, and Sean Stiller’s Ancestral Threads. The full list of short films is available on the imagineNATIVE website.

The 24th edition of the imagineNATIVE festival takes place in Toronto from Oct. 17 to 22, before moving to the online streaming and iNdigital Space platforms from Oct. 23 to 29.

Image courtesy of North Country Cinema