Film at imagineNATIVE discusses range of masculinity of Siksika Nation men

Correction May 21: Producer's name is Coty Savard not Cody as reported originally.

The documentary feature Siksikakowan: The Blackfoot Man by writer/director Sinakson Trevor Solway will screen at imagineNATIVE in Toronto, the largest Indigenous film and media arts festival in the world.

Solway is a member of Siksika Nation in Alberta. His film will be shown June 7 at the TIFF Lightbox. Siksikakowan delves into the masculinity of the Blackfoot men of Solway’s First Nation. Men from the community discuss their lives, showing not only their strengths but their vulnerabilities as well.

“Growing up in the prairies and growing up with my family in Siksika, I grew up around a lot of ultra-masculine men,” Solway said.

“And I didn't always feel like I fit into that as, like, a young artist or a sensitive, creative kid.”

Solway, 33, grew up in Siksika. At age 18 he left to go to film school in Vancouver. For the past 10 years he’s been living in Calgary, about a 45-minute drive from the Nation, visiting Siksika about once a week.

“Ever since a young age, I've had that kind of curiosity to observe the people around me and make sense of their lives and their complexities,” he said. The film is “a nice portrait of the men in my community,” Solway said.

While the film shows men displaying masculine attitudes in rodeo, hockey and hunting, there is also another side displayed, like when one young man discusses a painful breakup.

Solway explained that part of his motivation to make this film was because when people talk about masculinity, including Indigenous masculinity, discussions quickly veer towards toxic masculinity.

He said those conversations frequently occur in the urban areas.

“The people that it actually affects rarely get to speak for themselves,” Solway said. “I wanted this film to be sort of like a mouthpiece for the men in my community. And I always checked in with people. I always made sure that they were comfortable with what they were sharing. And even in the edit we had check-ins with people.”

Coty Savard (Cree/Métis) produced Siksikakowan: The Blackfoot Man, which is a National Film Board of Canada production.

“It's like a homecoming in a way because Coty and I met at imagineNATIVE many years ago,” Solway said. “And I pitched her this project. That was in 2018.”

Solway said working alongside Savard eased the work.

“She was always thinking with that kind, compassionate lens,” he said. “We have a lot of the same values. So, we would have all of these check-ins as we were filming. It wasn't my goal to expose people or to throw anybody under the bus.”

A community screening of the film was shown in January at Siksika Nation’s Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park.

“It was really nice for them to see it before the whole world,” Solway said.

“When people often think about Native men, there's only one or two ways that they view us,” he said. “And it's because of the way we've been portrayed in film and television since the dawn of cinema. We've been portrayed as these savage Indians and these warriors. Or we’re this noble Indian, this Elder who had all this wisdom all the time. So, they're very one-dimensional people who have been for the use of non-Indigenous audiences.”

Solway is hoping his film changes this perception.

“The point of this film was for it to have a spectrum of masculine experiences and expressions, because there's more than one way to be a man,” he said. “And we're real human beings. We're all the wonderful things that we've done. And we're all the mistakes that we've made. They all make us who we are.”

Solway is thrilled his film was accepted into imagineNATIVE.

“It's really nice to have your work celebrated and screened amongst your peers and amongst the community, and to have these conversations,” he said. “As Indigenous filmmakers, we often exist in silos. We’re making our films in our communities across the world. But to come together and celebrate each other's stories, it's a really special experience.”

Solway is also involved with a pair of other films that will be screened at imagineNATIVE.

He wrote and directed Settler, which is an 11-minute horror film. This short features a settler family in the 1800s, which has its land claim challenged by a Blackfoot trickster.

Solway also produced the short film Pendleton Man, which features three cousins left alone at home while their grandma is at bingo. A thunderstorm causes a power outage and the children’s imaginations run wild.

The imagineNATIVE festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary and runs June 3 to June 8.

Tickets for the screening of Siksikakowan: The Blackfoot Man are available at https://imaginenative.org/festival/schedule/?_search=Blackfoot%20Man