Underplayed Gems

This Was the Time (1970)

This Was the Time poster
Directed by
Eugene Boyko
Genre
documentary
Country
Canada
Runtime
16 min
Rating
8.0 of 10 from 1 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This documentary follows Haida artist Robert Davidson as he carves and raises a totem pole in Haida Gwaii for the first time in nearly a century. It shows a potlatch ceremony and the community's revival of their traditions.

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What happens

This Was the Time is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Eugene Boyko and released in 1970. Created for the National Film Board of Canada, the film portrays the renaissance of Haida culture through its depiction of a potlatch ceremony in Haida Gwaii, culminating in artist Robert Davidson carving and erecting a totem pole in the community for the first time in nearly a century. In the 21st century, the NFB launched a project to counter the sometimes colonialist outsider perspectives reflected in many of its old documentaries on First Nations and Inuit cultures by commissioning indigenous filmmakers to make their own new films responding to and recontextualizing the older films. Christopher Auchter's Now Is the Time, a response to This Was the Time which mixed footage from the original film with contemporary footage including Davidson's own reflections on the project, was released in 2019. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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