Y FOR YOUTH - SPECIAL MENTION - DOXA Documentary Film Festival | HONORABLE MENTION - DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - Calgary International Film Festival | OFFICIAL SELECTION - Hot Docs | OFFICIAL SELECTION - Big Sky Film Festival
Truth & Reconciliation • Indigenous Issues • Ecology • Conservation • North American Buffalo • Rematriation
Date of Completion: 2024 | Run Time: 99 minutes | Languages: English with French, Spanish & English subtitles | Captions: Yes | Includes: Transcript | Director: Tasha Hubbard | Producers: Tasha Hubbard, Jason Ryle & George Hupka | Executive Producer: Bonnie Thompson
SINGING BACK THE BUFFALO follows Indigenous visionaries and communities who are rematriating the buffalo to the heart of the North American plains they once defined, signaling a turning point for Indigenous nations, the ecosystem, and all our collective survival. As a girl growing up on the prairies in Saskatchewan, Hubbard would imagine herds of buffalo roaming vast open plains on which she lived. 165 years ago, it was common for big herds to stretch out as far as the eye could see and take two days to pass by. Three decades later, after massive campaigns of deliberate slaughter, there were as little as 250 buffalo left from the over 50 million that moved across the continent. The impact on Indigenous plains nations, who had depended on the buffalo for food, shelter, and spiritual sustenance, was disastrous. The buffalo's fate forced Indigenous Peoples, now starving, into confinement on the reserves. For over a century, neither have been free to walk the lands for which Indigenous Peoples have cared for millennia. Hubbard is now an award-winning filmmaker, a buffalo academic and buffalo activist. With SINGING BACK THE BUFFALO she takes viewers on an epic journey that has not yet been told on screen, exploring concepts of buffalo consciousness, buffalo personhood, and relationships between buffalo and Indigenous Peoples. From her Indigenous point of view, we learn the importance of rematriating teachings from the buffalo, and how the land needs the buffalo back more than ever in this time of climate change, food insecurity, and uncertainty. We meet Indigenous visionaries, leaders, scientists, and communities who are restoring the buffalo to the land they once defined. Their return back across the heart of North America signals a turning point for the long-term collective survival of Indigenous nations, the environment and all of humanity.
AWARDS
Y for Youth - Special Mention | DOXA Documentary Film Festival
Honorable Mention - Documentary Feature | Calgary International Film Festival
FILM FESTIVALS
Hot Docs (Canadian Premiere)
Big Sky Film Festival (US Premiere)