Singing Back the Buffalo
Tasha Hubbard • 98 minutes • 2024 • Canada • English
In a time of severe environmental degradation and global uncertainty, the buffalo can lead us to a better tomorrow.
After a dark recent history, the buffalo herds of North America are awaiting their return to the Great Plains, aided by dedicated Indigenous activists, leaders and communities, including award-winning Cree filmmaker Tasha Hubbard (nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up). Together with Blackfoot Elder Leroy Little Bear, Hubbard weaves an intimate story of humanity’s connections to buffalo and eloquently reveals how their return can usher in a new era of sustainability and balance.
On her journey, Hubbard explores the challenges faced by buffalo allies and shares the positive steps already taken towards the ultimate—but uncertain—goal of buffalo rematriation. Richly visualized and deeply uplifting, Singing Back the Buffalo is an epic reimagining of North America through the lens of buffalo consciousness and a potent dream of what is within our grasp.
Fri., Aug. 9, 4:00pm @ Arts Court Theatre (2 Daly Ave.)
Director Biography
Dr. Tasha Hubbard is a filmmaker and an associate professor in the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. She is from Peepeekisis First Nation in Treaty Four Territory and has ties to Thunderchild First Nation in Treaty Six Territory. She is also the mother of a fifteen-year-old son. Her academic research is on Indigenous efforts to return the buffalo to the lands and Indigenous film in North America. She has been working to support the Buffalo Treaty since 2015, and is one of the founding directors of the International Buffalo Relations Institute.
Her first solo writing/directing project Two Worlds Colliding, about Saskatoon’s infamous Starlight Tours, premiered at ImagineNATIVE in 2004 and won the Canada Award at the Gemini Awards in 2005. In 2016, she directed an NFB-produced feature documentary called Birth of a Family about a 60s Scoop family coming together for the first time during a holiday in Banff. It premiered at Hot Docs International Film Festival and landed in the top ten audience choice list. It also won the Audience Favourite for Feature Documentary at the Edmonton International Film Festival and the Moon Jury prize at ImagineNATIVE. Her last film was nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, an exploration of the impact of the death of Colten Boushie that premiered in the spring of 2019. It opened the Hot Docs International Film Festival and won the top Canadian documentary prize. It also won the Colin Low Award for the top Canadian film at the DOXA International Film Festival and the Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Documentary. Hubbard was awarded the DGC Discovery award in 2019.
Poster
