RKS 2023 Television: APTN’s Season Two of 7thGen: Snapshot of Episodes 1-3

It was Crazy Horse that said, “I see a time of 7 generations when all the colours of mankind will gather under the sacred tree of life and the whole earth will become one circle again.”

Eagle Vision and APTN’s factual series 7TH GEN returns for season two with ten new episodes featuring some of the most inspiring young Indigenous leaders from across the country. The series returns for season two on APTN in English on Friday, October 13th at 8 pm (PST/ET) and on Monday, October 9th at 8:30 pm (PST/ET) and again on Tuesday, October 10th at 7:30 am (PST/ET) in Cree. 

EPISODE 1: Layten Byhette from Buffalo River Dene Nation and Fond du Lac First Nations is a drag queen revelling in live drag performances that include comedy. His two-spirit constitution was grudgingly accepted by family and the indigenous community but not his drag queen obsession which caused shame amongst many until it was clear after his appearance on Canada’s Drag Queen he could be a success in life. But in this rise to possible fame he is rooted to both the indigenous and queer community. He has created a clothing line and hopes to represent queer and indigenous talent so he has not been co-opted out of the indigenous community in his search for fame.

EPISODE 2: Natasha Kanapé Fontaine an Innu from Pessamit now living in Montreal is an internationally recognized poet, actress, visual artist and performer promoting indigenous and environmental rights. The discovery of her artistic self was basically a voyage of discovery as to her familial and cultural past very much influenced by growing up partially with her grandparents. As a child she moved to Baie Comeau in Quebec and experienced aboriginal directed racism. If her poetry can cause a connection to indigenous culture so they can understand the Inuit connection to nature she has partially accomplished her mission.

EPISODE 3: Mihskakwan James Harper from the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation has a master’s degree in engineering and is a recognized expert in renewable energy and how indigenous beliefs and traditions can lead the way towards clean and renewable energy. He is also a staunch proponent of supporting indigenous youth on the path to clean and renewable energy. While urban raised in Edmonton and Winnipeg frequent trips to his Sturgeon Lake family ensured he never lost a deep appreciation to indigenous culture and practices particularly never take more than you need from the earth and take it with humbleness and thankfulness. To all youth he believes that as for him and all youth there will always be a supporter to get you through.

A very welcome series that builds on APTN’s recent series “Yukon Harvest”. Yes no one can escape from their history but to continually dwell on residential schools, horrific conditions in “reservations”, drug and alcohol abuse and colonization loses its impact in depressive negativity.  “7th Gen” brings to the screen hope and celebration for indigenous culture.

Excuse the personal example but I lost my dog of 15 years in mid July and suffering terrible grief I was stuck on those last moments and weeks of his life driving the grief deeper. There were many happy moments with my Dylan and I see him staring at me and telling me, “Don’t you dare dwell on the last days of my life. We had a fantastic life together so think about that in my honour!”. Do you think the six generations would want the 7th Generation and Canadians to dwell on nothing but misery?

Watch the trailer here if you want a flavour for the “7th Gen” series https://vimeo.com/eaglevisioncentral/review/863332960/4e5b900f29

RKS 2023 Wine: A Wine From the Former Land of Rotgut

Languedoc wines years ago had a very poor reputation as cheap rotgut for the Parisian working class. Yes, apparently it was even blended with wine from the French colony Algeria. Fast forward to today where modernization and agricultural improvements have wiped out Languedoc’s reputation as the land of rotgut. Prices are generally affordable. Quality is there.

We try a Domaine de Fabrègues a blend of Cinsault (50%), Mourvedre (40%) and Carignan (10%).

Aroma: Hints of a lighter red wine with high toned red cherry, raspberry and pomegranate.

Palate: The cherry and raspberry motor on. A light red with low tannins and a surprisingly long finish. It may be light but not flinty. Well assembled.

Personality: I am no mega blaster. Surely you folks require a light gem like yours truly. At this price Penniless Pensioners you can afford me.

Food Match: Ham and cheese on a fresh baguette from my favourite bakery in the 7th arrondissement just off Pont De L’Alma. Sold out by 10 a.m. I was last there in October 2019 so I can’t remember the name of the boulangerie.

Cellarbility: Will not improve with age but can sail into the end of 2024.

Price: $ 15.95 CDN.

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 89/100. Decanter World Wine Awards 92.

(Domaine de Fabrègues 2019 L’Oreé, AOP Languedoc, Domaine de Fabrègues, Aspiran, France, 750 mL, 13%).

RKS 2023 Film: “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person”

Do you like vampire movies? That alone should fuel your desire to watch “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” which is Montreal director Ariane Louis-Seize’s first feature length film and pardon the pun but a “bloody” good one!

Sasha (Sara Montpetit) is a 68-year-old teen vampire living with her vampire family but she has one problem. She has no desire to hunt and kill her human victims! Her mother and father visit vampire specialists who find somehow Sasha’s brain has not developed in a killer fashion. So a viewer is flooded with a huge wall of absurdity with a vampire that drinks blood from baggies stored in the refrigerator by her cousin Denise and the rest of the family.

While Denise focuses on young men for her dinner late developer Sasha just can’t do the same. She then meets suicidal teen Paul (Felix Antoine Bénard) bullied and miserable by the high school crowd. He is willing to give his life to Sasha suicidal that he is. At this point the vampire genre gives way to a classic coming of age film. Sasha and Paul are on the fringes of a milieu they should be comfortable with. Much of the film is death focused but it takes a twist to a love of life and as a teen, even a 68-year-old one, can find a comfortable character niche. After all what is wrong with a vampire seeking consenting suicidal persons for their dinner?

Both Montpetit and Bénard have a convincing cloud of alienation and hope swirling about them and in this (please forgive me director!) Guillermo Del Toro (“The Shape of Water”) and Tim Burtonesque “Bettlejuice”) fashion deliver at times haunting perfection.

Theatrical release is on October 13th! A Monty Python streak in the film in my mind. Love that “Men in Black” final scene!

RKS 2023 Film 89/100.

RKS Literature: Drafting a Black Man to Fight in Korea: White People Have no Shame

“I didn’t want nine toes, I wanted all ten, and I had fucking well had no eyes for Korea. I didn’t see what right I would have to be there, what right anybody had to send my black ass there. I don’t think anybody can really hate his country, I don’t think that is possible; but you can certainly despise the road your country travels, and the people they elect to lead them on that road. If I had been a white man, I would have been ashamed, really, to send a black man to fight for me. But shame is individual, not collective, and, collectively speaking, white people have no shame. They have the shortest memories of any people of the world-which explains, no doubt, why they have no shame.”

James Baldwin, “Just Above My Head”, 1979

RKS 2023 Film : Hot Docs Citizen Minutes: “Mind Check 1-2 1-2”: Hip Hopping Into The Eye of the Anxiety Storm!

Citizen Minutes is a collection of Canadian short documentaries highlighting ordinary Canadians doing extraordinary things “to make their communities better places” at least according to Hot Docs. The series of shorts will be playing in select Canadian cities.

“Mind Check 1-2 1-2” is a short documentary in which hip hopper Ian Keteku known as AK or Akitone sings and speaks live about mental health primarily to youth as according to Youth Mental Health Canada 70% of mental health problems have their onset during youth and adolescence and Canada’s youth suicide rate is the third highest in the industrialized world. AK has the creds to vocalize about mental health suffering from severe anxiety himself.

“Mind Check 1-2 1-2” is just over 9 minutes and is directed and written by Keteku.

Each screening of these collection of docs will be free and followed by an audience Q&A “with the goal of inspiring collaborative dialogue about civic engagement and the many forms it can take” according to Hot Docs.

Theatrical dates in Canada are;

October 16th – Rio Theatre, Vancouver, BC, 6:30 pm – Host Angela Steritt

October 25th – Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, Toronto, ON, 6:30 pm – CBC Host Ismaila Alfa and a special guest performance by Akitone.

November 9th – Calgary Central Library, Calgary, AB, 6:30 pm – CBC Host Angela Knight

November 27th – Cinema Du Musée – Montreal, QC, 6:30 pm – CBC Daybreak Host Sean Henry 

November 27th – Halifax Central Library, Halifax, NS, 6:30 pm  – CBC Host Preston Mulligan and a special guest performance by comedian Janelle Niles.

“RKS 2023 Film”: Hot Docs Citizen Minutes: “Do You Hear What I Hear”: Noise Noise Go Away and Don’t Come Back Any Day!

Citizen Minutes is a collection of Canadian short documentaries highlighting ordinary Canadians doing extraordinary things “to make their communities better places” at least according to Hot Docs. The series of shorts will be playing in select Canadian cities.

“Do You Hear What I Hear” is a short documentary in which writer and director Cat Mills profiles a couple of Toronto women who hear all to well the noise surrounding Torontonians. Modified muffler monster vehicles you can hear 7 kilometres away. Ambulances, police cars and fire trucks. Politicians acknowledge the problem but do nothing about it. By-law officers can capture noise offenders but must call police to take action which means nothing but finger pointing for why offenders are rarely punished.

Take my word for it Toronto fire trucks blasting away actually make me lose my hearing for a few seconds after they rush away all six of them to rescue one person who has just had a heart attack along with two police cars and an ambulance.

“Do You Hear What I Hear” is just over 8 minutes and is directed and written by Cat Mills.

Each screening of these collection of docs will be free and followed by an audience Q&A “with the goal of inspiring collaborative dialogue about civic engagement and the many forms it can take” according to Hot Docs.

Theatrical dates in Canada are;

October 16th – Rio Theatre, Vancouver, BC, 6:30 pm – Host Angela Steritt

October 25th – Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, Toronto, ON, 6:30 pm – CBC Host Ismaila Alfa and a special guest performance by Akitone.

November 9th – Calgary Central Library, Calgary, AB, 6:30 pm – CBC Host Angela Knight

November 27th – Cinema Du Musée – Montreal, QC, 6:30 pm – CBC Daybreak Host Sean Henry 

November 27th – Halifax Central Library, Halifax, NS, 6:30 pm  – CBC Host Preston Mulligan and a special guest performance by comedian Janelle Niles.

RKS Literature: Working in a Harlem Hospital (James Baldwin)

“ I didn’t spend as many hours as she did, for example in the corridors of Harlem Hospital; wasn’t surrounded, as she was, by the stink of blood, the rattle of expiring life; the cold, brutal high-pitched siren of our indifference: On Saturday nights, they pick up a torso here, some legs there, over yonder, a head, one eye here, some legs there, over yonder, some guts draping the garbage can, and they do everything else they can find into a croker sack and bring it to the hospital and say, sew it up! And you know? It’s hard to believe it, but- sometimes we do. And they walk out in the morning, don’t even say thank you.”

James Baldwin “Just Above My Head”, 1979.

RKS 2023 Wine: From Côtes Catalanes

Lafage Narassa 2020 is from 50-year-old plus vines and is a blend of 70% Grenache and 30% Syrah. It was from grapes harvested in September and November and then blended.

Aroma: Blackberries, blueberries, plums, licorice and a smattering of dark chocolate.

Palate: Just a bit of momentary sweetness as part of the grapes used in the blend were intentionally overripened. While one might categorize the wine as made from hot weather grapes which it might be that touch of sweetness soothes the heat and leaves in its wake a smooth ride and a heap, of very ripe strawberries.

Personality: You may initially contemplate a hot and heavy wine and as far as your palate is concerned you may be correct. But take me a step further and take a sip and you might find me almost elegant if such is possible with 15% induced heat.

Food Match: Just about any pasta dish made with fresh local tomatoes is key.

Cellarbility: Drinking window now until 2027.

Price: $24.95 CDN.

RKS 2023 Wine Rating: 90/100. Joe Czerwinski, robertparker.com 91.

(Lafage Narassa 2020, IGP Côtes de Catalanes, Famille Lafage, Perpignan, France, 750 mL, 15%).

RKS Literature: “Surrounded By Junkies and Sleepwalkers” (James Baldwin)

“It’s like we used to say in church, and its still true-the sinner can’t be saved unless he knows he is a sinner. And you surrounded by junkies child. This is a nation of sleepwalkers, and they can’t wake up” She reaches out, and touches Tony’s face, lightly. “And death comes baby, that’s all. It’s best when death comes, that he wrap his arms around you, and take you with him. Death can strike you and leave you grinning where you are-like a skeleton with clothes on. It’s happening around us every day. You just look around you, when you walk out tomorrow morning.”

James Baldwin “Just Over My Head”, 1979

RKS 2023 Film: “Mother of The Station”: Heartfelt Doc of Greek Women Emigrating to Germany

“Mother of the Station” is a Greek documentary presenting a historical and very pictorial story about two waves of Greek emigration to Germany with a focus on Greek women in two waves one in 1960-1973 and another following the Greek economic crisis of 2010. In both waves there is pain and hardship on Greek families particularly amongst children of these Greek emigrants to Germany. Sort of a “Twilight Zone” being caught between two cultures and languages but some of these emigrants feeling neither Greek nor German particularly in the first wave. While the first wave of Greek women emigrating it was poverty in the rural areas, particularly in Northern Greece that caused a huge wave. Employment contracts were signed in Greece and at the employer’s expense Greek women and their families ended up in Germany but not the entire family at once. Some left families and children behind to be minded by grandparents.  The newer wave saw many professionals emigrating.

As is the story of many immigrants the plan was stay of a relatively short time and return to Greece with a nest egg but once children were immersed in the German educational system there was less incentive to return to Greece.

Most of the dialogue is from emigrants and their children in the first wave and one learns the challenges and in some causes trauma of having to leave behind family and establish a life in Germany. This is the forté of the documentary with these personal stories brought into the context of comments from a historian and a economist but it is the personal stories one will remember.

Since the end of WW II over three million Greeks emigrated from Greece.

You can watch the trailer here https://www.filmfestival.gr/en/movie-tdf/movie/14862

The documentary premiered at the 25th Thessaloniki International Film Festival last year and is directed by Kostula Tomadaki.

RKS 2023 Film Rating 81/100.