The team behind the feature documentary s-yéwyáw / Awaken worked on a “pressure-cooker timeline” to deliver the final cut in one year, says director Liz Marshall.

The TELUS originals film, which documents the stories and teachings of Indigenous Elders through the lens of three Indigenous creators, will make its world bow at the Planet In Focus International Environmental Film Festival in Toronto on Friday (Oct. 13). For the filmmaking team, the festival will serve as a launchpad to trigger press attention and spark a cultural dialogue in the lead-up to its release in 2024.

s-yéwyáw / Awaken is directed by Marshall, who is also a writer and producer alongside Ecko Aleck, Alfonso Salinas and Charlene SanJenko, the trio of creators featured in the doc. Marshall also serves as executive producer. The film is produced by B.C.-based Elders’ Film.

The character-driven doc was produced with the support of Telus, developed with the participation of Creative BC, and produced in association with Hollywood Suite and Knowledge Network.

“Making a feature documentary in one year, from the start of production in September of 2022, to delivering the film in September 2023, demanded a pressure-cooker timeline,” Marshall tells Playback Daily.

“It was a transformative process of having one foot in the reality of colonial demands, and one foot in a world of slowing down, listening, centring and honouring Indigenous Elders and protocols,” adds Marshall.

“Our film has seven protagonists. Narratively speaking, finding cohesive and emotive ways to weave and intersect character-driven storylines within a 92-minute film structure, allowing space for reflection, was a creative challenge.”

The film follows the Indigenous multimedia creators Aleck of the Nlaka’pamux Nation (Lytton), Salinas of the shíshálh Nation (Sunshine Coast), and impact producer SanJenko of Splatsin of the Secwépemc Nation (Shuswap) as they learn and document the cultural teachings and legacies of four elders, including the effects of the residential school system. The project also “calls the audience’s attention to the filmmaking process of narrative collaboration between an Indigenous and settler team,” according to an earlier news release.

Marshall describes the filmmaking process as “cross-cultural immersion,” where settlers were invited into Indigenous communities as collaborators and the more experienced filmmakers on the team passed on their knowledge to emerging and Indigenous participants. “We knew I would not be ‘telling’ their story. Rather, I was invited to engage in co-creation, in transformation,” she says.

s-yéwyáw / Awaken was conceived in February 2022 and pitched successfully to Telus Originals later that year. It was supported in part through provincial and federal tax credits and Hollywood Suite and Knowledge Network came on board to complete financing in 2023.

“We officially entered production in September 2022. Production wrapped in the early summer of 2023 as we were deep in the editing phase, working towards a fine cut. We locked picture and entered post in August at Picture Shop Vancouver,” says Marshall.

Filming took place on the unceded homelands of the shíshálh and sḵwx̱wú7mesh Peoples, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and səlilwətaɬ Territories, Splatsin te Secwepemcul’ecw, Qualicum First Nation, Nlaka’pamux Territory, said the release.

“As parents and as Indigenous multimedia creators, we are deeply committed to healing, finding our voice and speaking our truth. We are sharing the stories of our Indigenous Elders with the world to amplify their knowledge and wisdom in collaboration with non-Indigenous allies,” Aleck, Salinas, and SanJenko said in a joint statement.

The team is currently focused on the film’s festival run. The long-term goal is to secure educational distribution and find partners and funders for a community screenings campaign in 2024.

s-yéwyáw / Awaken is slated to premiere in Canada on TELUS originals, Hollywood Suite, and Knowledge Network in the winter and spring of 2024. There are no distribution deals outside of North America as of press time.

Planet in Focus runs from Oct. 12 to 22.

Photo courtesy of Elders’ Film