Snowscreen festival returns to Ottawa for 9th year

People in Ottawa will have the opportunity to watch Indigenous films from the circumpolar North at a theatre made of snow this weekend.

The Asinabka Film and Media Arts Festival will host its 9th annual Snowscreen event from 6 to 9 p.m. each day from Feb. 7 to 9 at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa.

Short films, documentaries and archival Inuit Broadcasting Corp. shows will be on the screen while hot drinks and warming stations are available at the festival.

“Hopefully some of these films will be heartwarming too, so it might be cold outside but some of these stories can warm our hearts somehow,” said Geronimo Inutiq, one of the festival’s curators.

“People will be coming together, chatting, there will be some refreshments and so it should be a fun get-together.”

The short films that will be screened outdoors on Friday and Saturday are:

• Beach Heart 
• Starlight Sojourn 
• Inuktitut Dialects in the 21st Century
• Heartbeat of a Nation
• Baigal Nuur
• Spirit Emulsion
• Grape Soda in the Parking Lot
• Inkwo For When the Starving Return

“The [audiences on] two nights outside will get to see some great films from filmmakers from various regions of Inuit communities and also engage in dialogue about identity, language, who we are as a people and as individuals,” Inutiq said.

The festival will also screen two Isuma Productions documentaries on the Snowscreen, NIPI (Voice) and Inuit Cree Reconciliation.

For those who want to attend but avoid the cold weather, IBC TV shows will be screened indoors on Sunday at Beandigen Cafe.

The festival is free to attend and DJ and VJ performances will follow the screenings.