This week I’m taking a break from sharing old Academy Award winning short films to spotlight something more contemporary, obscure, and overlooked.

While this film was featured at a film festival in Montréal back then, I only came to learn about it while reading the book Is a River Alive? wherein author Robert Macfarlane travels this very river and meets with Rita Mestokosho, the poet whose work is recited in this film as part of the narrative and whose daughter was one of the co-creators of this film.

It’s a short, poignant, beautiful film that underscores not only the importance of environmental action but also of giving indigenous peoples platforms to tell visual stories in both narrative and documentary forms.