Call Me Human

Directed by Kim O'Bomsawin

International award-winning Innu writer and poet Joséphine Bacon, a meditation on interconnectedness, and an anti-colonialist story about revitalizing Indigenous languages.

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SYNOPSIS

Innu writer Joséphine Bacon is part of a generation that has lived through significant changes in Indigenous traditions and colonialist displacement. Born in the Innu community of Pessamit, Bacon was sent to residential school at the age of five and spent fourteen years of her life there. Now, with charm, grace, and quiet tenacity, she is leading a movement to preserve her people’s language and culture.

This endearing film moves with Bacon across Canada — Montreal, Pessamit, and the tundra. In each place she visits, Bacon shares reflections and stories, backdropped by the film’s stunning cinematography. The contrasts between city and wilderness mirror Bacon’s upbringing, creating a poignant sense of the displacement she and her generation experienced. At the same time, the film offers a moving, inspirational meditation on the interconnectedness of language, earth, spirituality, and culture.

CALL ME HUMAN, directed by Kim O’Bomsawin (Abenaki), tells an anti-colonialist story about revitalizing and preserving Indigenous languages, history, and culture.

PRESS

“[We were] moved by O’Bomsawin’s quietly daring cinematic language, and the way it captures Bacon’s beautiful words, instilling a reverence for her land and all that it provides"

VIFF Jury

“A stunning profile of a prolific Innu poet."

POV Magazine

"Tells a broader story of colonization, language revitalization, and the way Indigenous Peoples are fighting to maintain their culture"

Seventh Row

"This film is incredible…an object of great beauty."

Penelope McQuade, Canadian Radio and Television Host

"A film in the image of the woman [Josephine Bacon]: humble, poetic."

ICI Côte-Nord

“A magnificent documentary, an extraordinary woman, an amazing destiny, moving moments: cinema as we love it"

Marc Fournier, Radio-Canada

“More than a documentary. It's about a people and a way of life that was suppressed and oppressed at first but is now experiencing a revival thanks to people like Josephine"

Jon The Blogcentric, Blogger

"This delicate portrait of an important figure in Aboriginal culture seduces with its moments of poetry, the modesty of its evocation of still painful wounds and the careful production of Abenaki filmmaker Kim O’Bomsawin"

Journal Metro

“Happiness transpires, oozes, springs from everywhere in the documentary"

André Duchesne, La Presse

“A striking portrait of Bacon, a survivor several times over who finds herself celebrated for her poetry late in life"

Cult MTL

“A very beautiful contemplative film about memory, the environment"

Anne-Josée,Cameron, Culture Specialist, Content Creator and Cultural Commentator

"Very moving and informative"

Eugénie Lépîne-Blondeau, Host / Cultural columnist

"Documentarian and human rights activist, Kim O’Bomsawin, has created a body of work that interrogates colonialism and features Indigenous experiences"

Katie Pedlar Student Journalist

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

Best Canadian Documentary, International Film Festival Vancouver
Best Canadian Documentary, Calgary International Film Festival
Audience Choice Best Documentary, Cinefest Film Festival
Mel Hoppenheim Audience Award, Cinémania

Sheffield DocFest
DOK.FEST München
Calgary International Film Festival
ReFramed Film Festival
Festival Vues dans la tête
Kingston Canadian Film Festival
Belleville Downtown International Documentary Festival
Hudson Film Festival
Festival Ciné-vert
Quebec Film Festival
Epos The International Art Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Kim O'Bomsawin

Kim O’Bomsawin completed a master’s degree in sociology before embarking on her documentary filmmaking career. From the Abenaki Nation, informing the public on First Peoples issues motivates her approach.

O’Bomsawin’s feature documentary, QUIET KILLING, about missing and murdered indigenous women, won the “Donald Britain Award for Best Political and Social Documentary” (Canadian Screen Awards, 2018). Her documentary films have followed young Indigenous hockey players (THE RED LINE, 2014) and restorative justice movements (MINOKIN: REPARER NOTRE JUSTICE, 2020). Her documentary TEWEIKAN REVIVED, following three musicians returning to their land and their first inspirations, won a 2019 Gemini Award.

She is currently working on several documentary feature projects, including NIN AUASS, an intimate and poetic portrait of First Nations youth (NFB), and IT TAKES A VILLAGE, on the return of births to remote Indigenous communities. Since 2018, she has worked as a content producer and director for the development of the transmedia project TELLING OUR STORY (TERRE INNUE), whose objective is to offer a decolonized vision of the History of the 11 First Peoples of Quebec, and she is cowriting her first animated feature film on indigenous feminicide within the international co-production Ghostdance.

Kim also gives lectures in schools and institutions on the issues that affect First Peoples. In addition to her marked interest in Indigenous issues, her studies in sociology make her a very versatile director and screenwriter. (05/22)

View Press Kit

Credits:

Director: Kim O'Bomsawin

Producer: Andrée-Anne Frenette

Cinematography: Hugo Gendron, Michel Valiquette

Editor: Alexandre Lachance

Main Protagonist: Joséphine Bacon

Original Music: Alain Auger, Sound Design: Luc Raymond, Mix: Jean-Philippe Goyette

Executive Producers: Ian Boyd, Josée Rock, Réginald Vollant, Alexandre Bacon, Florent Vollant

Graphics: Meky Ottawa

Sound Recording: Lynne Trépanier

Subject Areas

History Post-Colonialism Language/Linguistics Poetry Native American Sociology Anthropology

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OUR CATALOG

Call Me Human

SYNOPSIS

PRESS

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Subject Areas

RELATED LINKS

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

Daughter of a Lost Bird

Without a Whisper

Nu Shu: A Hidden Language of Women in China

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The Poetry Deal: A Film with Diane di Prima

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...And Woman Wove It in a Basket