The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival will open with a short film program for the first time in the festival’s 21-year history.

The world’s largest Indigenous film festival announced its opening and closing galas for its virtual 21st edition, running from Oct. 20 to 25. It will open with Yellow, a program of seven short films made by artists from seven different Indigenous nations, and close with the Canadian premiere of the documentary Compañía, directed by Miguel Hilari.

The short films featured in Yellow include Michelle Derosier’s Audrey’s Story (Anishinaabe; pictured); Theola Ross’ Êmîcêtôsêt: Many bloodlines (Cree); Jack Steele’s Between Two Lines (Wiradjuri); Ngariki Ngatae’s Te Wao Nui (Māori); Banchi Hanuse’s Nuxalk Radio (Nuxalk); Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu’s Kapaemahu (Kanaka Maoli); and Alisi Telengut’s The Fourfold (Mongolian, Telengut).

Bolivian director Miguel Hilari’s Compañía is a Spanish-language documentary that looks at the daily life of a small mountain community as members return from the city to honour the dead. The film “stretches notions of Indigenous Cinema using documentary, experimental, and visual poetry,” according to the release from imagineNATIVe.

The 2020 festival will also introduce a new community initiative, titled To Gift. The festival will have daily draws of physical and digital gifts for audiences and artists that highlight Indigenous artists, companies and goods. The initiative is created to honour Indigenous practices of gifting and reciprocity.

This year’s festival lineup, which will be announced in full in the coming weeks, is programmed by artistic director Niki Little, alongside Adam Piron, Darlene Naponse, and Susan Blight.

The 2020 imagineNATIVE festival will be the first with executive director Naomi Johnson at the helm, following the departure of Jason Ryle, who left the role he held since 2010 to pursue new opportunities, including producing work.