Call Me Human

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Innu writer Joséphine Bacon is part of a generation that has lived through significant changes in Indigenous traditions and colonialist displacement. Born in the Innu community of Pessamit, Bacon was sent to residential school at the age of five and spent fourteen years of her life there. Now, with charm, grace, and quiet tenacity, she is leading a movement to preserve her people’s language and culture.

This endearing film moves with Bacon across Canada — Montreal, Pessamit, and the tundra. In each place she visits, Bacon shares reflections and stories, backdropped by the film’s stunning cinematography. The contrasts between city and wilderness mirror Bacon’s upbringing, creating a poignant sense of the displacement she and her generation experienced. At the same time, the film offers a moving, inspirational meditation on the interconnectedness of language, earth, spirituality, and culture.

CALL ME HUMAN, directed by Kim O’Bomsawin (Abenaki), tells an anti-colonialist story about revitalizing and preserving Indigenous languages, history, and culture.

"[We were] moved by O'Bomsawin's quietly daring cinematic language, and the way it captures Bacon's beautiful words, instilling a reverence for her land and all that it provides"
VIFF Jury

"A stunning profile of a prolific Innu poet."
POV Magazine

"Tells a broader story of colonization, language revitalization, and the way Indigenous Peoples are fighting to maintain their culture"
Seventh Row

"This film is incredible...an object of great beauty."
Penelope McQuade, Canadian Radio and Television Host

"A film in the image of the woman [Josephine Bacon]: humble, poetic."
ICI Côte-Nord

"A magnificent documentary, an extraordinary woman, an amazing destiny, moving moments: cinema as we love it"
Marc Fournier, Radio-Canada

"More than a documentary. It's about a people and a way of life that was suppressed and oppressed at first but is now experiencing a revival thanks to people like Josephine"
Jon The Blogcentric, Blogger

"This delicate portrait of an important figure in Aboriginal culture seduces with its moments of poetry, the modesty of its evocation of still painful wounds and the careful production of Abenaki filmmaker Kim O'Bomsawin"
Journal Metro

"Happiness transpires, oozes, springs from everywhere in the documentary"
André Duchesne, La Presse

"A striking portrait of Bacon, a survivor several times over who finds herself celebrated for her poetry late in life"
Cult MTL

"A very beautiful contemplative film about memory, the environment"
Anne-Josée,Cameron, Culture Specialist, Content Creator and Cultural Commentator

"Very moving and informative"
Eugénie Lépîne-Blondeau, Host / Cultural columnist

"Documentarian and human rights activist, Kim O'Bomsawin, has created a body of work that interrogates colonialism and features Indigenous experiences"
Katie Pedlar Student Journalist

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Main credits

O’Bomsawin, Kim (film director)
O’Bomsawin, Kim (screenwriter)
Frenette, Andrée-Anne (film producer)
Bacon, Joséphine (on-screen participant)

Other credits

Cinematography, Hugo Gendron, Michel Valiquette; editing, Alexandre Lachance; music, Alain Auger.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

Canada,Poetry,Indigenous,Colonialism,Innu,Joséphine Bacon,first nation,indigenous experience,Montreal,Pessamit,language,culture,displacement,indigenous language,indigenous culture,anti-colonialist,colonialist; "Call Me Human"; Women Make Movies

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