Indigenous women celebrated at Sundance Film Festival

Two Indigenous women are being featured and recognized at the Sundance Film Festival this week in Utah.

Caroline Monnet, a filmmaker from Montreal of Anishinabe and French descent, received the Merata Mita fellowship from the Sundance Institute Indigenous program which will see her get funding for her second feature.

Monnet has been filmmaking for over a decade and said she has done a lot of short films, experimental films, narrative films and documentaries.

"This comes at a pivotal time for me," she said.

"I'll be writing and directing my second feature film and it's titled Thunderbird."

The film takes place in 1976 and is a fictional romance based on the real Manitou College. The college was experimental in the sense that it safeguarded the Indigenous cultures in Quebec.

"It's a very important story in Quebec," she said.

"I wanted to do a narrative feature about it because it is said that the government's decision to close the college was motivated by fear, by the rights of Indigenous intelligentsia. They were scared of a bunch of Native youths making films and art and I think it's quite interesting. When we control the narrative, we can achieve really great things and it's a story not too many people know about."

The fellowship is named after the late Merata Mita, a Māori filmmaker who Monnet describes as a trailblazer for Indigenous women in filmmaking.

"She's such a strong visionary, [an] independent and determined woman," she said.

"It's a real honour and I feel very privileged to be named this year's fellow."

She said there are several talented Indigenous people featured at Sundance from all around the world whose voices bring change.

"It's allowing us to dream as nations, as people, as filmmakers," she said.

"I do think it is a truly exciting time to be making films today and to tell our stories our own way."