Japanese filmmaker and educator Miho Aida presents her award-winning documentary film, “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins: Gwich’in Women Speak,” at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo on Wednesday, January 11 at 5:30 p.m. in University Classroom Building Room 100. The event is free and open to the public.
The Gwich’in is an Athabaskan-speaking First Nations of Canada and an Alaska Native people. The documentary explores the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that has been eyed for oil and gas development since 1986. In the film, Gwich’in women speak out for their sacred land.
The film was named the top documentary at the 2015 Central Illinois Feminist Film Festival, received the Audience Choice Award at the 2014 Earth Port Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 2013 American Indian Film Festival. Following the screening, Aida will discuss the film and her new video series, “Standing Rock Women Speak,” along with her efforts to save the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North and South Dakota.
The event is sponsored by the UH Hilo Japanese Studies Program, Gender and Women’s Studies Program, Humanities Division, College of Arts and Sciences, and International Student Services and Intercultural Education Program.
For more information, contact Professor Yoshiko Fukushima at yf83@hawaii.edu or 932-7213. For more information about the film and filmmaker, visit http://mihoaida.com/gwichin.