Short film by KDFN citizen Kiri Geen set to make world premiere at VIFF tonight

Thursday, 7 October 2021 13:05

By Dylan MacNeil

"Kiri and the Girl" poster (www.moonchildrenfilms.com).

“Kiri and The Girl” is a metaphor for Geen's experience being a part of the sixties scoop.

“Kiri and The Girl” is a short film by Tlingit, Kwanlin Dün First Nation citizen and film industry veteran Kiri Geen. It will make its world premiere on the silver screen tonight in the “Hollywood of the North” at the Vancouver International Film Festival.

Geen is exhausted from all the behind-the-scenes work, but she’s also excited.

“It’s really exciting. It’s a big deal. I’m really proud of this project,” says Geen.

“Kiri and The Girl” is a fairy tale version of her life and a symbolic telling of what it was like for her to be a part of the sixties scoop. Geen was born in British Columbia and adopted when she was just 12 days old. She never reconnected with her birth family. In the film, young Kiri loses her mother, which Geen says is a metaphor for her losing her culture.

“That knowledge has never been passed down to me, I have to go out searching for it. I don’t have the traditional aunties to make me pow wow regalia, I have to figure it out on my own. I’ve done it all on my own and I’m really proud of myself for doing that,” Geen says.

Geen says making the film was a journey of healing and self discovery and she’s learned that Tlingit culture was always inside her, it’s a part of her DNA.

Geen wrote the script with help from Christopher Logan and she also was one of the films producers. She even makes an appearance, playing the role of young Kiri’s mother. She says she made it a point to work with as many Indigenous people as possible.

“Kiri and The Girl” will spend some time on the festival circuit, screening at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco, the San Diego Film Festival, and the St John's International Women's Film Festival in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Geen says she has plans to make more films including a feature length movie called “Chalk” about children who were misplaced and lost when they were moved to orphanages after residential schools closed down.

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