Sunday, October 27, 2024 – 4:00 pm
Galaxy Cinemas Barrie, 72 Commerce Park Dr., Barrie, ON L4N 8W8
So Surreal: Behind the Masks unveils the fascinating connection between the work of famed Surrealist artists and Yup'ik and Kwakwaka'wakw ceremonial masks, and the quest to bring some of the masks back home.
Cree director Neil Diamond (Reel Injun), accompanied by a cadre of interested parties including cultural preservation workers and art experts, journeys across the ocean to try to locate the Raven Transformation Mask, an invaluable cultural item that the northwest coastal community has previously had no luck tracking down.
Using illustration and engaging storytelling, Diamond tells how masks like this left their homelands, through trade and sale but also through theft.
With dreamy Surrealist imagery interspersed with Yup’ik dancers in masks, interviews with current-day carvers and art experts, and one particularly arresting scene in the Louvre with Yup’ik artist, storyteller, and dancer Chuna McIntyre, this doc masterfully weaves together the threads of cultural and artistic histories.
Part detective story and part illuminating history, Behind the Masks is a must-see for anyone who loves art, culture, and entertaining documentaries.
(extracted from TIFF 2024 write up by Kelly Boutsalis)
Presented as complimentary programming to the public arts exhibition Seeds to Sow
