Synopsis
Thirty years after the closure of the Schefferville mining colony, the Innu, after having taken possession of the town abandoned by the non-Natives, are facing a new challenge: the reopening of the iron mines. Territory, identity and legitimacy feed the dialogue between two peoples, Quebecers and First Nations, who share a common struggle. Two identities that claim to be colonized, the former behaving at several levels as a colonizer. Who owns the territory? Do the Aboriginals have the same right to self-determination as Quebecers? A Tent on Mars is a poetic charge to this complex situation.
A word from Tënk
“No history without land.”
In the middle of a rust-coloured landscape littered with deep and lifeless pits stands an Innu tent. “We’re going to the planet Mars” says guide and primary film subject Essimeu “Tite” McKenzie drily, adding with a tinge of irony, “To see if there’s Martians. And if there are, we’ll invade them.”
Prior to the ratification of the Act approving the Agreement concerning James Bay and Northern Québec by the Cree and Inuit nations in 1975, no treaty in Canada included provisions for First Nations to cede their territorial rights. This has not prevented the proliferation of government and industrial propaganda in support of extracting natural resources in Canada’s North that denies the fundamental rights of Innu residents there, even to the point of ignoring their very presence on their own land. “The aboriginal rights end where ours begin ” thunders out Lucien Bouchard’s voice over a series of images of the devastation left by mines operated by white settlers in Schefferville.
The film’s formal processing is, in a word, striking. Its lines, colours and contrasts transform each frame into a work of art. Supported by Fred Fortin’s profound and incisive music, the film raises the issue of how self-determination and land sovereignty have long been demands of Indigenous nations.
“Going to Mars is something you've been dreaming about for a long time,” concludes Tite McKenzie firmly. ”Us, we don't dream about Mars. We dream of a land. Our territory.”
Pascale Ferland
Filmmaker, teacher and programmer
Presented in collaboration with
