SAVAGE
2009 / 6 mins / HD / Colour / Cree / Musical Drama / Canada
2010 - Genie Award - Live Action Short Drama
Director/Writer: Lisa Jackson
Producer: Lori Lozinski & Lauren Grant
Cinematographer: Bob Aschmann
Cast: Skeena Reece, Ta’Kaiya Blaney
Company: A Violator Films / Clique Pictures Production
synopsis
On a summer day in the 1950s, a native girl watches the countryside go by from the backseat of a car. A woman at her kitchen table sings a lullaby in her Cree language. When the girl arrives at her destination, she undergoes a transformation that will turn the woman’s gentle voice into a howl of anger and pain.
In a place like this, there aren’t many chances to be a kid. But, when no one’s watching…
A residential school musical.
Festivals
Invited to over 40 festivals including: imagineNATIVE Film Festival, SXSW, Berlinale Forum Expanded, New York International Children’s Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Uppsala International Short Film Festival
Awards
2010 – Yorkton Golden Sheaf Award – Best Multicultural Program
2011 Leo – Best Performance by an Actress in a short drama (Skeena Reece), Best Editing in a Short Drama
2011 – Reel World Film Festival – Best Canadian Short
2011 – Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival – Best Short Film
PRESS
"Award-winning filmmaker Lisa Jackson delivers one of the most original short films of the year in the form of a residential school musical.”
- Atlantic Film Festival
“An awesome reinvention of genre that uses heavy metal, zombies and hip-hop dance moves to communicate thought control, hunger and abuse.”
- WSFF Best of the Fest
“A beautiful and surprising Ghost Dance.”
- Northwest Film & Video Festival
"Co-opting the denigrating term "savage" for the title, Lisa Jackson turns the tables on the language of colonization and captures our attention. Meeting creative challenges posed in a powerful way and then dubbing the resulting film as "a residential school musical," turns our heads again. Without trivializing a dark part of Canada's history, SAVAGE invites the viewer to reconsider residential schools in a way that pushes the boundaries of thought. While exploring creative perimeters, the film muses on the capacity of children to harness the power of imagination as shelter from the most unpleasant of circumstances."
- Sylvia Jonescu Lisitza, Moving Images Distribution