MELODY MCKIVER TO RELEASE OFFICIAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK FOR AWARD-WINNING FILM RETURNING HOME Français
OTTAWA, ON, Dec. 14, 2021 /CNW/ - Anishinaabe composer Melody McKiver's new album, Returning Home, will be released on December 15, in recognition of the sixth anniversary of the release of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Composed on solo viola and electronics for the award-winning documentary Returning Home, McKiver's official motion picture soundtrack explores tandem themes of trauma to the land and waters — and the ongoing repercussions of residential schools. Despite the grief, the music is connected by an undercurrent of love and hope for the land, and the interconnected healing journeys of Indigenous communities and their fish relations.
Returning Home, the first feature from Canadian Geographic Films and Secwépemc director Sean Stiller, interweaves Canada's history of residential schools with the plight of Pacific wild salmon. The film has received top recognition at three western Canadian international film festivals — in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver — taking home the best Canadian documentary award from three respective juries.
Stiller's poetic film follows Orange Shirt Day founder Phyllis Jack-Webstad on a nation-wide school tour, as her family struggles to heal from the multigenerational impact of attending the notorious St. Joseph's Mission Residential School back home in Secwépemc territory. In an interweaving storyline, amidst a global pandemic and the lowest salmon run in Canadian history, Returning Home also explores how a multi-year federal fishing moratorium tears at the very fabric of Secwépemc communities and centuries-old traditions with Pacific wild salmon.
Canada's Indian residential school legacy and the decimation of wild pacific salmon stem from a common story: a world where relationships are severed in the service of power, where we become detached from one another and the complex webs of interdependence that sustain creation. In both systems, neither human nor animal are sacred. In the Secwépemc worldview, we are all related.
Melody McKiver recorded the soundtrack on location in Sioux Lookout, Ont., and mastered at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal, Que. Their musical work integrates electronics with Western classical music to shape a new genre of Anishinaabe compositions. They are directing any profits from the official Returning Home soundtrack towards mutual aid for residential school survivors from Lac Seul First Nation — McKiver's matrilineal community. The album is available for pre-sale now through Bandcamp, and can be pre-saved on Spotify.
About Melody McKiver
Melody McKiver's debut EP Reckoning was nominated for an Indigenous Music Award, and they are a recurring participant in the Banff Centre for the Arts' Indigenous Classical Music Gatherings. McKiver was the 2020 recipient of the Robert Fleming Prize awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts to an exceptionally talented young Canadian composer. A frequent performer across Turtle Island, Melody has performed at the National Arts Centre, Luminato Festival, Vancouver's Western Front, and the Toronto International Film Festival. They have shared stages with Polaris Prize winners Lido Pimienta, Tanya Tagaq, and Jeremy Dutcher, and performed with acclaimed filmmaker and musician Alanis Obomsawin. Melody is an Assistant Professor of Music Composition in the Brandon University School of Music. Upcoming projects include composition commissions for TorQ Percussion Quartet, Megumi Masaki, Duo Airs, and releasing a new full-length solo album in 2022 including a feature by Jeremy Dutcher and Anishinaabe elder Josephine King. To learn more about Melody McKiver, please visit www.melodymckiver.com
About Canadian Geographic Films
For nearly a century, Canadian Geographic has been dedicated to making Canada better known to Canadians and to the world, primarily through its award-winning magazine. As our country undergoes significant changes to its population, climate, environment, economy and culture, Canadian Geographic Films is leading a digital transformation to support a greater understanding of Canada's geography — the diverse human and physical landscape — as well as the changes affecting its people and the environment. Returning Home is a true testament to this, as Canadian Geographic Films' first feature documentary. The production company has a number of other projects currently in development, with documentaries and television series slated for release in 2022.
SOURCE Royal Canadian Geographical Society
Press Contacts: for music inquiries please contact Melody McKiver at [email protected]; to learn more about the film, or to schedule an interview with Sean Stiller or Phyllis Jack-Webstad, please contact: Keegan Hoban at [email protected]
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