Indigenous Languages in the Movies.

At the beginning of April, I wrote the article “Saving Endangered Languages”.  

I started my article with a mention of a Canadian film.  The name of the film was “SGaawaay K’uuna” (Edge of the Knife), directed by Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown. This film is spoken mainly in the Haida language, an indigenous language from British Columbia, a language that only about 20 people in the world can speak fluently. After I wrote the article, I read different reviews about this film on the Internet, most of them very favorable and praising the originality of the idea behind this movie. It received the award of Best Canadian Film in Vancouver International Film Festival and was in Canada’s Top Ten of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)

But this is not the first time that a film is produced in Canada, spoken in one of the first nation’s language.   In 2001, a film called Atanaarjuat (ᐊᑕᓈᕐᔪᐊᑦ ), translated in English as” The Fast Runner “, and directed by Zacharias Kunuk was released. This movie is spoken in Inuktitut. This movie received very good reviews too. it won the “Caméra d’Or” prize in Cannes Film Festival in the same year and received the award of the Best Canadian film in TIFF.

Other countries in different parts of the world have seen new films recently produced where a minority language is spoken.  Some films are not widely known.

In 2006, a film named “Ten Canoes” was released. This film was directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr. This film is narrated in English but spoken mostly in Yolngu Matha language. This film received the best film award of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and received a special award at the Cannes Film Festival.

2018 was a good year for the production of films in Peru, with the release of two films spoken in indigenous languages: One of them was “Retablo”, directed by Alvaro Delgado-Aparicio and spoken mainly in Quechua. This film won the award as best Peruvian film in the Festival de Cine de Lima. The other film was “Wiñaypacha” (Translated as “Eternity”) directed by Oscar Catacora and spoken in Aymara. This film was selected as the Peruvian entry for the Academy Awards as Best Foreign Language Film but was not nominated.  

But another film, related to this subject, received the award during this same edition (2019): “Roma”, a Mexican drama Film directed by Alfonso Cuarón and spoken in Spanish and Mixtec.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages. It is estimated that most of the languages in danger belong to indigenous peoples.

In order to raise awareness about this topic, some events were organized during the year in different parts of the world, including film screening and theatre plays where indigenous languages are used.  

The use of indigenous languages in films is not new. There are many films using them, mostly for partial conversations while most of the film is in English, Spanish or in another language with more speakers. But we might see now more films using them fully. Indigenous languages are becoming more relevant to the film industry.  We are going to see also much more work done translating films into indigenous languages. It is an interesting step from the film industry to help preserve and save endangered languages.