Minnesota Native News

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Duluth Superior Film Festival Is Partnering Again With The American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO) For A Virtual Indigenous Film Series.

Reporter Leah Lemm recently had a conversation with Local filmmaker Khayman Goodsky, who will host the series. Here’s Leah with the story.

STORY #1: VIRTUAL INDIGENOUS FILM SERIES

April 21st Kicks off the 2021 Indigenous Film Series lineup. The third Wednesday of each month through July will spotlight Indigenous Filmmakers.

Here’s my conversation with the host of the series, Khayman Goodsky:

Leah: Boozhoo Khayman - can you please introduce yourself?

Khayman Goodsky: My name is Khayman Goodsky. I’m  from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa from Minnesota, I live in Duluth, Minnesota here with my family. 

Leah: I want to talk about the Indigenous Film Series, which you’ll be hosting. And you have a particular experience with film, since you’re also a filmmaker yourself! Can you talk a little about your work?

Khayman Goodsky: So right now I produce my own DIY like very do-it-yourself videos. 

I usually try to go for telling Indigenous stories or having core Indigenous values come through my videos, which comes as a little odd because it is contemporary. 

And I do try to go for that like very comic book, whimsical feel. So it's, it's a mesh of what I was raised with.

Leah: Fantastic! Okay, so the Indigenous Film Festival is coming up - Can you tell me more about the festival and what people can expect?

Khayman Goodsky: Yes. So I'm actually working for the Duluth Superior Film Festival and we're having an Indigenous Film Series once a month and it'll be online so you can you know, go on the thing it's free, which is beautiful. 

And then after each, um, short and each feature, we're going to have a Q&A hosted by me and we'll have guests come on and we'll talk about the film. We'll talk about like, you know, what the effects is... 

And the first one is on April 21st. And it's going to be the first one will be, um, a film by Jonathan Thunder. It's MAAMAWI. And it was about five minutes long and it's beautiful. It's striking. It has like such vivid colors that Jonathan usually uses in his work. 

And the second one will be The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open. Just a trigger warning. It is, it does feature domestic violence and things like that. And after that, we'll be having a panel hosted with Jonathan Thunder and then a domestic violence advocate provider.

That goes on then for a couple months. And then we will be having, um, our actual film festival in August, which we are, um, you know, accepting submissions for. And, um, I'm very excited to be a part of a team where we highlight and uphold Indigenous artists. I think that's super great.

Leah: And your film DREAM WANDERER is also a part of the series. It’ll be featured as a part of the May event, the May Can you tell us a little bit about DREAM WANDERER?

Khayman Goodsky: What DREAM WANDERER is about this young Ojibwe Ojibwe woman who has the ability to hop into other people's streams, but she doesn't always control it. And so, uh, one night she's out at a bar on the town and she sees, um, a man with red eyes, which we commonly call demons. 

She subconsciously becomes to this, um, demon and ends up in his dreams and finds out like why he is the way he is. And she gets stuck in his dreams and they both have to figure out a way to, you know, get out with each other's help, even though they don't like each other. And, um, yeah, it's a 10 minute short video, and it's using three of my favorite people to like work with.

Leah: To find out more and register for the Virtual Indigenous Film Series… visit the 
Duluth Superior Film Festival website. www.ds-ff.com

For MN Native News, I’m Leah Lemm.