National Film Board taps Sask. storytellers for doc series

The National Film Board has challenged three storytellers in Saskatchewan to create short documentariesabout life and culture in the province.

• National Film Board gives Saskatchewan creatives $10K opportunity

First Nations filmmaker Louise BigEagle, writer Kristin Catherwood, and filmmaker Eric Thiessenwill be partof theNFB'sDoc Lab an intensive,ten-weekprogram designed to encourage would-be filmmakers.

Preserving language and culture

When Louise BigEagle sees someone having a conversation in fluent Nakota-Assiniboine, she said the speakers have a connection between each other that she cannot experience.

• Saskatchewan's Indigenous languages, basis of culture, threatened

BigEagle, from the Ocean Man First Nation, does not speak Nakota-Assiniboine despite the fluency ofolder generations including her aunts, uncles and grandfather a trend she has noticed in her own and subsequent generations.

"I think [why] we're a bit separated right now is because we don't know our languages," BigEagle told CBC Radio's The Morning Edition on Wednesday. "We just know English and a lot of us are getting more urbanized."

A recent report by Statistics Canada indicated that the number of people in Saskatchewan who identify an Indigenous language as their mother tongue has decreased in 2016 to 28,340 from 30,895 in 2011. The most common Indigenous language spoken in Saskatchewan is Cree, in multiple dialects.

"I just want people to know that we're around," BigEagle said, who grew up taking Cree classes in school some of which she retainedbut does not know much of her Nakota-Assiniboine tongue.

A night to remember

Saskatoon's Eric Thiessen also stuck close to home for his pitch to the NFB.

"It spends one night in the Saskatoon mobile crisis centre," Thiessen said in an interview with CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning.

The idea came to Thiessen after hearing stories from a friend whose wife works as a social worker with mobile crisis. Thiessen believes they are unsung heroes of the city, whose hard work goes mostly unnoticed by the general public.

"If you are in crisis you can call and they will work with you, whether that means just talking through whatever you are going through on the phone, helping you with that.It could mean social workers visiting you or visiting the place that you think needs attention, and sometimes they will also involve police," he said.

NFB series great opportunity

Thiessen said he is honoured to be a part of the NFB series, because it "gives you the opportunity to focus on your own community."

BigEagle echoes that idea, suggesting that she views the work as vital to her community.

BigEagle said she feels many in her generation and younger generations believe that knowing English is enough to get by.

"We don't realize the importance of [our] language, to be able to connect in a certain that we can't connect just by English," BigEagle said.

Filming will begin in September.