Taye Alvis has been making films since he was nine-years-old. Rising up on Walpole Island, Alvis heard tales about ghosts that roamed the world, and he needed to convey these tales to life.
Now 21, the author and director’s brief horror movie When Shadows Dance at Evening is a part of the Forest Metropolis Movie Pageant.
“I grew up with a bunch of various tales, as I am certain a number of Indigenous folks have,” he mentioned on CBC’s Afternoon Drive earlier this week.
“Like a folktale, like these lonely spirits and, you recognize, not likely certain of their motivations. And so I type of needed to take this story and determine what that might be, what might the again story be to those spirits?”
The 16-minute horror movie performed Friday at Wolf Corridor in London.
Alvis mentioned he has a “sure love” for the style.
“I like when issues really feel a bit greater than life and horror — particularly inside the previous few years — I feel there’s been type of a renaissance with nice filmmakers like, you recognize, Jordan Peele and Mike Flanagan, Rose Glass,” he mentioned.
“I feel horror lends to a number of experimentation and a number of methods to speak a message with out essentially telling it outright. And so I believed this might be an important style to discover, but additionally to discover with Indigenous folklore and my very own subject material.”
Filming
The film was shot in January 2021.
“We shot it on my reservation of Walpole Island at my aunt’s home,” he mentioned.
“So it was fairly like a troublesome shoot and it was a chilly shoot, however it was a number of enjoyable to, you recognize, type of navigate that.”
As a result of the timing of the shoot coincided with a COVID-19 lockdown in Ontario, Alvis mentioned all the forged and crew needed to keep on the reservation throughout the shoot.
“Our entire forged and crew have been staying in my family’ houses. There have been 4 homes that we have been staying in after which we shot in my aunt’s home,” he mentioned.
“It was acquainted — that is one thing I’ve recognized my complete life, in fact. And to have the ability to introduce, not solely my forged and crew, however my buddies to this sort of place the place I grew up, it was a really unimaginable alternative.”
Alvis mentioned he hopes folks at first benefit from the movie, but additionally that this continues to push Indigenous movie to the forefront in Canada.
“I feel that solely helps to type of give rise to this new age of Indigenous cinema,” he mentioned, highlighting the work of Sterlin Harjo and Danis Goulet and the way “their initiatives type of exploding onto the scene.”
“It has been proven that there is a demand for Indigenous storytellers, so I hope that I can, you recognize, type of be part of that as properly in my very own small manner.”
