HALIFAX—An award-winning Mi’kmaw filmmaker is releasing a new documentary honouring the women who have used their skills and knowledge to create traditional art for generations.

Catherine Martin’s short film, The Basket Maker, has been in the works for decades and covers different generations of Mi’kmaq artists.

“My experience with the arts and basket making has been a long, 40-something year road,” said Martin, who is from Millbrook First Nation near Truro, N.S.

The documentary is being shown at the Halifax Central Library on Monday at 6:30 p.m., as part of National Indigenous History Month. Before the screening, Martin’s mother Jean Martin and aunt Florence Walsh will demonstrate basket making and answer questions.

The film is 41 minutes long, and features archival footage of elder basket makers who have passed away and interviews with the current generation of basket makers, often the daughters of the elders who are carrying on the tradition.

“I knew a lot of these basket makers that have passed on. They’re going to be in this film. I wanted them to have some sort of voice and I wanted people to appreciate what it is to make a basket,” said Martin, who has hundreds of baskets in her personal collection.

Martin, who is due to receive the Order of Canada in July, has made films for over 30 years. She’s best known for her 2002 project The Spirit of Annie Mae, and has made films for the National Film Board of Canada and CBC.

Much of the archival footage in The Basket Maker features material Martin shot or produced along with her husband Frank Clifford, also a producer and director. She’s been collecting material around the subject for 30 years.

“Some are pieces from archives and we had a to do a lot of work on correcting sound and cleaning up tape that’s been corroded,” said Martin.

After the library screenings, Martin and her film sponsors — The Samuel Family Foundation and the Prince’s Charities Canada — will look to widely distribute the documentary.

But more importantly, she hopes it reaches people close to home.

“That’s the focus, to help them, to help the Mi’kmaq youth and artists to have a way to remember some of these basket makers and get a sense of their work. I’m not doing a how-to because I’m not promoting that everybody goes out there and makes baskets,” Martin said.

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Martin said the documentary shows how basket makers want the artistic tradition passed down to future generations in the same way they were given knowledge. She wants viewers to understand and appreciate the lengthy process that goes into the end product; from the time it takes for a tree to grow, to being selected, cut down, hauled out of the forest, split into splints, shaved and weaved.

“And that’s what I hope, that (viewers) preference would be to buy a Mi’kmaq basket over any kind of reproduction or one made by non-Mi’kmaq. And that they appreciate that it’s not a mass production,” said Martin.

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