Filmmaker from Peguis First Nations coming to MHV to share Indigenous stories

The Hanover Teachers Association (HTA) is partnering with a few community organizations to hold First Nations and Métis events.  

Their next event is today, April 25th, and they are partnering with Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV) to host an Indigenous filmmaker. 

Her name is Erica Daniels, and she’s a storyteller from Peguis First Nation. She is a multi-award winning documentary filmmaker and entrepreneur. Daniels established her media company, Kejic Productions, in 2017, and is fulfilling her passion to share the stories of her community. 

Monica Martens from HTA says she’s excited to hear Daniels talk about the power of storytelling, and they’ll be watching several short documentaries she’s produced at the event. 

One of them is a short documentary she made a few years ago called Run as One: The Journey of the Front Runners. 

“It's about 10 Indigenous athletes who were in residential school, and they were torchbearers at the 1967 Pan American Games held in Winnipeg,” she says. “And this group of 10 ran the torch from Saint Paul, Minnesota to Winnipeg, but when they arrived at the stadium in Winnipeg, a non-Indigenous athlete was asked to carry the torch into the stadium, and these Indigenous runners who carried the torch 800 kilometers were sent for lunch at a nearby restaurant.” 

Daniels' most recent work will air on Crave this spring.

Martens says the HTA wants to host more events like these because people have been asking for education on Indigenous peoples. 

“We have a group of teachers who are hearing from the parents of their students, from the teachers that they work with, from other community organizations and community members that this is learning that they want to learn more about,” she says. “That either didn't happen for them at school, or that they find kind of hard to access in this community because we don't have a huge population of Indigenous people here in Hanover, and so we're kind of answering the call.” 

She says people want to learn, and it’s great HTA has connections and is able to provide opportunities like this for people who are interested. 

The film screening starts at MHV at 6:30pm. There will be complimentary coffee, tea, and desserts.  

Their next event after this is on Wednesday, May 10th. 

With files from Carly Koop