Darlene Naponse’s film, “Aki,” is a wordless love letter to her community of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek.
As press materials state, the documentary about the First Nation unfolds entirely without narration and dialogue, using images to portray the land, the seasons, memory and the rhythms of life.
Having premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, "Aki" (Anishinaabemowin for "earth" or "land") is set to screen here in Sudbury Tuesday, Sept. 16, at Cinéfest Sudbury International Film Festival.
Naponse said she wanted to create a historic documentary about her home First Nation located in the western end of the Greater Sudbury area, but didn’t want to do it in English, and she doesn’t speak fluent Anishinaabemowin.
That’s when she got the idea to tell her community’s story visually, showcasing the “beauty and wonders that I get to experience every day and I think is pretty awesome.”
“In the film, we go through the seasons, and we go through the spaces where we live and where we play, where we hunt, and where we fish, and we celebrate,” she said. “We’re at the powwow, we're out on the lake, we're in the winter, we're in the sugar bush.”
While she shows the area’s natural beauty, she also exposes the impacts of industrial development, including 100 years of mining in the area.
“Sudbury is Atikameksheng traditional territory, and we have this relationship with mining for over 100 years in Sudbury,” Naponse said. “So it’s for people to understand the history of Sudbury and where we are and how we exist together.”
The film was shot by local cinematographers Ryan Mariotti and Mathieu Seguin, who collected more than 400 hours of footage for the project. It’s set to music by Cris Derkson, a Juno Award-nominated cellist from Northern Alberta.
“There's this beautiful orchestrated music that just plays through it, and then also there's two contemporary songs, and then our beautiful landscape, just letting the land talk,” she said.
The film is “meditative,” Naponse said, allowing viewers to “just relax and really kind of sit down and be immersed into the wonder and beauty of the north.”
Naponse has been a filmmaker for more than 20 years now and is no stranger to either TIFF or Cinéfest.
Previous feature films include 2018’s “Falls Around Her” and 2022’s “Stellar,” which were also shot in Atikameksheng, although these were dramatic fiction. “Aki” is Naponse’s first documentary feature.
She said she’s excited to have “Aki” screening at both TIFF and Cinéfest this year.
“It's always an honor to be able to screen at home and to be able for people to see it on the large screen,” Naponse said in an interview with Sudbury.com last week.
“I'm here down in Toronto right now getting ready for TIFF, and it's super exciting. It's an honor to be able to have made this film and to be able to showcase it at an international film festival like this.”
If you’d like to take in “Aki,” tickets to the 7 p.m. Sept. 16 screening are still available.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.