WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE?
What’s Your Favourite...?
Filmmaker and AMA member Janine Windolph talks storytelling, mountain hikes and Quentin Tarantino.
By Nicole Keen
GROWING UP IN Northern Saskatchewan, Janine Windolph saved her pocket money for movie rentals. “When I was five years old, I was telling everybody I was going to make movies!” she says.
True to her word, Windolph has been doing just that. Her most recent films — Stories Are in Our Bones and Our Maternal Home — are the first two parts of a trilogy, which is focused on family connections and on rediscovering traditional Cree teachings. Now based in Bowness, in west Calgary, Windolph remains passionate about telling stories through film while guiding the next generation of creatives in her role as director of Indigenous Arts at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
Banff’s Tunnel Mountain trail offers hikers a spectacular view of Mount Rundle. | PHOTOS: NAHANNI McKAY; JIM BABBAGE/ADOBE STOCK
What are you most excited about this summer at the Banff Centre?
I’m hosting the Métis artist Leah Dorion as part of our “Decolonizing the Narrative” conversation series.
What is it about film as a medium that speaks to you?
I always loved stories. And when I watched Indigenous stories — The Beachcombers, North of 60 — that was the first time I’d seen Indigenous people onscreen. Old Westerns and those [types of] films didn’t reflect my family. That’s what made me want to share our stories. We were living on a trap line, hunting and fishing, and people talked about it as if that way of life was in the past. I wanted to share the world that I lived in.
Who are some directors or filmmakers you admire?
Alanis Obomsawin, one of the trailblazers of Indigenous film. And then my secret passion, Quentin Tarantino. I really love his storytelling. It’s all about perspectives and inter-connectedness, which is really in line with how Indigenous people [tell] stories. He was doing things I could recognize with oral storytelling.
“When I was five years old, I was telling everybody I was going to make movies!”
A still from Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film; The Prow offers elevated fare inspired by traditional Rocky Mountain ingredients such as wild game. | PHOTOS: SCREENPROD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; COURTESY OF THE PROW
I understand you have a Personal Chef Certificate. Where do you go to eat when you don’t feel like cooking?
My kids and I love The Prow [at Banff’s Buffalo Mountain Lodge]. They [do] the best bison poutine.
Where do you go when you want to reconnect to nature?
I have a soft spot for the Tunnel Mountain hike. There’s a beautiful view from the top of Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain.
Do you have a new film project on the horizon?
The third film in [my] trilogy is about me and my children living on a trap line for a week with one of my family members. I think that goes back to my original dream as a child — to show people that [traditional Indigenous lifestyles] are active and valid, still being lived. And that there’s a responsibility to steward the land and take care of it. AMA
GROWING UP IN Northern Saskatchewan, Janine Windolph saved her pocket money for movie rentals. “When I was five years old, I was telling everybody I was going to make movies!” she says.
True to her word, Windolph has been doing just that. Her most recent films — Stories Are in Our Bones and Our Maternal Home — are the first two parts of a trilogy, which is focused on family connections and on rediscovering traditional Cree teachings. Now based in Bowness, in west Calgary, Windolph remains passionate about telling stories through film while guiding the next generation of creatives in her role as director of Indigenous Arts at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
A still from Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film. | PHOTO: SCREENPROD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
The Prow offers elevated fare inspired by traditional Rocky Mountain ingredients such as wild game. | PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE PROW
“When I was five years old, I was telling everybody I was going to make movies!”