Hunting Blinds
Documentary Film
Indigenous science is explored through ancient technology found on an ancient and still active volcano.
Indigenous story teller Melaina Sheldon goes on a journey of discovery with archaeologist Kelsey Pennanen to learn more about the science, technology, and heritage immersed on a mountain called Alligator Mountain, once known as All-Together Mountain.
Hunting blinds are uniform structures found on mountains in Southern Yukon. These piles of rock have been in place, and in use, for thousands of years. They hide the hunter while they lie in wait for their prey.
Hunting Blinds is a feature documentary centering on an active volcano that has been has been sustaining people and animals for thousands of years. Melaina is on a hunt for evidence of her grand-father, a Southern Tutchone hunter and geologist who was born at All-Tother lake and who walked the ancient trails that lead to its mountain. She meets up with Kelsey whose archaeological practice has brought her to southern Yukon. Together they explore and document hunting technology in the midst of a rapidly changing environment. Along with local experts, they connect to the past to share the wisdom contained on All-Together mountain.
The crunch of volcanic rock will be felt as Melania and Kelsey hike up from the lake and gathering place below as they make their way towards the ridge. They will feel the cool breeze lifting off the ice patches, where lost hunting weapons are found again. They will feel the excitement when an hunting artifact is discovered near trails carved deep into the ground by wildlife.
Using perspective shifts, light animation and shadows, Hunting Blinds will transition from Melania and Kelsey’s modern hunt to the distant past, to illustrate how and why this technology was developed.
Developed and written by Melaina Sheldon,Kelsey Pennanen and Jessica Hall (Beyond The Left Hand Path, Saturday), Hunting Blinds celebrates science and technology indigenous to the Yukon Territory, in a cinematic story that will tell the story of the prescient society that came before us and the mountain that holds their knowledge.
Fever
Feature Horror/Thriller
In a remote, sub-arctic Yukon, a gold-mining family unearths a prehistoric parasite hibernating in the permafrost.
Sam McQuesten returns homes to reconnect with his family after a stint in rehab. Keen to redeem himself as a capable father Sam travels out to the family’s remote placer mine with his teenage daughter Cayley, to help reopen for the season. Led by his relentless father Don, the remote stretch of land has been trawled by the family for generations, with dwindling returns. Sam wants to sell his part of the claim, but an old mining shaft is discovered by his daughter, revealing an ancient world of melting permafrost that is dark, dank and claustrophobic. While investigating, a sealed chamber is opened, causing an infection to spread across the crew.
Fever is a paranoid, psychological monster horror, exploring personal traumas and the search for familial belonging.
Daaka Shagoon
Documentary Film
Daaka Shagoon is a human migration story exploring why Tlingit people living among abundant cultural and natural riches of the Northwest coast, travelled hundreds of kilometres to embrace an outwardly barren and forbidding land.
Synopsis coming soon
