HOLLYWOOD SUITE CELEBRATES INDIGENOUS CREATORS ON NATIONAL CANADIAN FILM DAY

Toronto, April 12, 2022 — Hollywood Suite is proud to present a full day of Indigenous-focussed programming April 20, 2022 to mark National Canadian Film Day. This showcase of Indigenous filmmakers, artists and stories will air on the Hollywood Suite 2000s Movies channel.

The full-day lineup will feature writer-director Jeremy Torrie’s gripping horror film The Corruption of Divine Providence (2020); Indian Horse (2017), an adaptation of Ojibway writer Richard Wagamese’s award-winning novel, which sheds light on the dark history of residential schools; Stream Me (2020), which follows a teenage girl from rural Nova Scotia who overcomes her insecurities by thriving in the world of online streaming; After The Last River (2015), which spotlights a remote community lurching from crisis to crisis as their homeland transforms into a modern frontier; Shirley Cheechoo’s compelling drama Bearwalker (2001); and award-winning film The Snow Walker (2003), which sees a pilot and his passenger struggle for survival after crashing in the Arctic tundra.

“With events that have recently unfolded and continue to be brought to light, Canada finds itself today at a new crossroads for Indigenous stories,” says Jeremy Torrie, writer-director of Corruption of Divine Providence and an Ojibwe from Treaty 3 territory. “My film brings an authentic, Indigenous approach to the horror genre, and I welcome the increased interest and respect for Indigenous stories across this nation.”

Viewers can also catch four titles included in National Canadian Film Day’s 2022 Spotlight on Indigenous-made Cinema, curated in association with imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. Darlene Naponse’s Falls Around Her (2018) follows a world-famous Anishinaabe musician (Tantoo Cardinal) who leaves everything behind to return to her reservation to live alone; The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw (2019) chronicles a woman who reluctantly returns to her isolated reserve to help her father care for her bitter mother; writer-director Jeff Barnaby’s critically acclaimed Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013), which inspired the Aila Test, a method of examining how Indigenous women are portrayed on film; and Canadian Screen Award-nominated Empire of Dirt (2013), which sees three generations of First Nations women struggle to deal with the demons of their past.

April 20

• 9:15 AM Stream Me
• 10:40 AM The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw
• 12:20 PM Empire of Dirt
• 2:05 PM The Snow Walker
• 4:00 PM Indian Horse
• 5:45 PM Falls Around Her
• 7:25 PM After The Last River
• 9:00 PM The Corruption of Divine Providence
• 10:40 PM Rhymes for Young Ghouls
• 12:10 AM Bearwalker