Aultsville Theatre is proud to present The Mohawk Short Film Fest on Saturday, April 26th. Featuring four films by local film makers Katsitsionni Fox and Shelby Mitchell-Adams the evening brings four short films by local Akwesasne film makers and features the Canadian Premiere of Kanenon:we – Original Seeds (2025).
Films to be screened include:
Ohenton Kariwhatekwen- Thanksgiving Address– Created by Friends of the Akwesasne Film School
Radio Bingo (2023) Directed by Shelby Mitchell-Adams
Tentsítewahkwe – We Pick It Up Again (2024) Directed by Katsitsionni Fox
Kanenon:we – Original Seeds (2025) Directed by Katsitsionni Fox
Film Summaries
Radio Bingo
To help revitalize the Mohawk language, a local reservation radio station incorporates the Mohawk language into a game of Radio Bingo.
Tentsítewahkwe – We Pick It Up Again (2024)
As a young girl, Jessica Shenandoah (Wolf Clan from the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation) learned about harvesting medicine and edible plants alongside her mother and grandmother. Contemporary Native Peoples are often separated many generations from their traditional knowledge due to the effects of colonial realities such as boarding school, forced religion, and land theft. In Tentsítewahkwe, the latest film centering Native women by Mohawk filmmaker Katsitsionni Fox, Shenandoah goes on a journey across four seasons and multiple Native territories to connect with other knowledge keepers reviving the land-based wisdom of foremothers in order to return to time-honored practices of pottery making, mat weaving, hide tanning, medicine making, food gathering, and more. Jessica embodies the Mohawk concept of tentsítewahkwe as she picks up knowledge of the old ways, these slow methods of creating and connecting in reciprocity with the Earth. Tentsítewahkwe is at once a thank you to the Native women who imbued their descendants with blood memory of these practices and a promise to future generations of Native Peoples that these practices will stay alive for generations to come.
Kanenon:we – Original Seeds
Kanenon:we – Original Seeds carries viewers into the grassroots Indigenous seed sovereignty movement led by Haudenosaunee women. It offers a glimpse into the challenges facing the world related to food security. It is a powerful view of what is possible in Indigenous communities working towards food sovereignty. Prior to European contact there was a rich and vibrant diversity of foods, with women primarily responsible for caretaking of the seeds. Genocidal practices including, boarding schools, land theft, forced relocation, imposed religion and even food warfare contributed to a disconnection from our traditional foods and seeds.
Tickets are also available at the City of Cornwall Box office locations or by calling 613-938-9400