Okay, my name's Lerzak Kathand and my film is Extractions. It's about extractive capitalism and colonialism in Canada and abroad and it's playing in form expanded. After talking with various friends recently I started coming to terms with the fact that in this capitalist system there are no easy outs. We're all complicit in resource extraction, war profiteering land theft, on and on down the list it goes. We're in the middle of a mass extinction event and people keep voting and conservative politicians that will maintain the course to doom. But this is all hard to talk about at an art event. I hear a lot about decolonization and while it's a nice word and has some lofty premise I actually don't know what it would look like in daily practice. There is some intergenerational trauma that's been handed down as my ancestor for being colonized. Some smallpox survival, wars, influenza, residential school, day school. My grandfather decided not to teach his children playing scre because he thought it would hold them back so I only know a few words. I know my family had medicine people on both sides but at some point my family took on Christianity and I can't blame them for that. They were adapting to survive. There are still medicine people in my family but whatever stuff I have is diagnosed as bipolar disorder and I take medications for it. Hi, welcome to the Teddy TV. My name is John Warbobak and this time we are discussing the film Extractions by Therese Katand. Hi, welcome to the festival. It's very nice to have you here with us. Can you just maybe start explaining a bit about resource extractions and the political context of that in Canada? Yeah, basically Canada is a colonial country and I'm indigenous so it affects me because it's where my land is but resource extraction has been used as part of colonialism to dispossess indigenous people of our lands and it's used as part of colonialism to not only in Canada but also around the world to take resources from indigenous communities and it's not necessarily that we want to use the resources ourselves but it keeps us from using our lands traditionally. So in this sense the film really links together the personal and the political which mainly comes through the narration of the film so can you talk a bit about your approach to narrate this this film and how exactly personal and political needs in the film? Yeah, I mean in the film like I talk about resource extraction but it's also like paralleling it to moments in my life like when I lived in a logging community where there was like a lot of racism which was part and parcel of of the sort of like frontier mentality of that community and also with resource extraction just like how it's affected indigenous communities and how there's apprehensions of indigenous children in Canada that are kind of parallel to resource extraction because those apprehensions are used to like create money for like largely white social services in Canada. Yeah, so and I want to have children so it's like constantly this worry like what if that happens to my kids? Yeah and then you also link a career nest to that there is one particular part in the movie where you talk about your experience is as a career indigenous person and all the hostility that you had to face so can you talk a bit about this aspect of the film? Yeah, that was mostly talking about that logging community like it was when I lived there it was a very short time in my life it was very it made a big impact on me and I was just coming to terms with my sexuality like I literally came out to myself like a few months after we left and but I remember when we moved there there was so much there was so much hostility especially over my gender presentation because I was already like gender non-conforming I was a tomboy I was like growing into like being a butch person and and so you know like small town mentality like they did not they did not accept that and I think it was I think it was because of the the logging industry and the ranching just kind of exploiting the land yeah and just so many things yeah yeah let's talk a bit about the imagery of the of the film at the same time all these things that the narration brings up it's really heavy and it's it's very political and but the images that we see at certain points at least they are like actually very beautiful they are meditative as well so I felt like that there was a bit of a tension between the two which which could function as a very creative tension can you talk a bit about that? yeah I mean it's interesting because like most of the footage in there is like stock footage from like pond five and prilling or archive and they're like like resource extraction it does look very like the very stunning images you know because they're like so epic yeah yeah yeah so I didn't like I didn't make compositional choices so much and like have those because I didn't shoot a lot of the the footage but I don't know how do I want to say I guess yeah it's eerie it's eerie how beautiful it is but also how it's like it's malevolent like like when I think of that the high burner the like torching thing that's burning sawdust and stuff it's like like I remember when I would see that as a kid it was this is very horrifying even though like I didn't really know like all the politics around it yeah the film also works as a criticism of capitalist society and the mechanisms of that can you focus through your thoughts about that I mean it comes through the movie as well but just for for a bit of an allegation on that yeah I mean resource extraction especially in Canada well in globally is like so much like it's so much tied into capitalism and capitalism is just about like exponential growth and and it's like our world can't bear it or like we're suffering climate change because people keep like wanting to like get everything from the planet that they can well they can and and it's not it's not sustainable and and it's killing us and yeah capitalism is not it's not going to survive I don't think well we're not going to survive if it does survive yeah so either or has to happen yeah right you also mentioned which I thought was very interesting the privilege not to care can you explain us what you what you mean by that yeah I mean I think people who like very privileged people like like the upper class who have like lots of money and who are like kind of I think they're kind of insulated from a lot of the effects of climate change like even even in Canada like we are feeling the effects but like not like the global south you know like like we're insulated from it a little bit even though like the north is melting and yeah like and and rich people are like going to be able to like have have their mercenaries keep us out of their compounds when they're all scrambling for like whatever's left right yeah yeah so like there are people who like just don't they don't have to care right yeah you also look into the future and I thought it was very interesting because all these heavy stuff came up in the film but at the same time towards the end it really becomes hopeful and you talk a lot about hope and that maybe it's just something that this system tries to make us believe that there is no hope and that our future is basically screwed already can you talk a bit about this this very positive outcome of the film because I think at the end it became very empowering and very positive and hopeful yeah I mean I think it's because because I want to have children so of course people are like you know like why do you want to kids like we're not gonna like we're not gonna make it and like I was talking about with a reporter recently about this idea of like chaotic joy like something something might come out of the chaos that has been to like save us like there might be someone who has like answers that have like we listen will like get help um finally um and also just because I think I think if we give in to like apathy like I think I think that just paves the way for more resource extraction and more like exploitation of the world like in population and our earth itself yeah so you do have a positive and my job for the future yeah yeah that's yeah that's wonderful thank you so much for the interview and we wish you all the best for the Berlinale enjoy and we will see you around for sure yeah thank you so much thank you