our grandmother the inlet

Directed by: Kayah George & Jaime Leigh Gianopoulos

Production Design: Charlie Hannah
Producers: Shelby Manton, Angelica Stirpe
Director of Photography: Farhad Ghaderi
Editor: Jaime Leigh Gianopoulos

A short hybrid documentary film featuring Kayah George, a young Indigenous woman and her grandmother Ta7a, daughter of the late Cheif Dan George, who performed the famous lament to Canada on its 100th year anniversary. The film is a reciprocal love letter portraying Kayah’s connection to the water, which in the Tsleil-Waututh Nation is considered to be their oldest grandmother and place of creation—illustrating the hardship of industry dominance on the mental health of indigenous youth and the spirit of gentle reclamation of love and connection to culture, water, and land as kin and relatives. The film vehicles powerful, poised, textured imagery with cultural inflections and past and present Indigenous-led struggles embedded within them, carrying a timely and relevant message.