Voices From the Barrens: Native People, Blueberries and Sovereignty

Maine Film Center and Colby Center for Arts and Humanities present:

Cinema in Conversation:

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Programmed and sponsored by Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities

Co-sponsored by the Oak Institute for Human Rights and the Colby College Departments of Cinema Studies, Spanish, and Religious Studies.

Post-film Q&A with director Nancy Ghertner!

Voices from the Barrens is a stunning portrait of the Wabanaki and their participation in the largest wild blueberry harvest in the world. Families come together to Washington County to hand-rake the blueberry fields every summer. Conversations in the cabins and the fields are interspersed with stunning views of the glacial barrens of Down East Maine as the film follows the rakers’ lives. In interviews with the tribal-owned company and elders from the Canadian Wabanaki the film documents the Passamaquoddy Tribe’s struggle to find a necessary balance between traditional work and the realities of tribal financial independence. Director Nancy Ghertner began research for the film in 2013, beginning with a single family, and after interviews with ninety people, and filming all across Down East Maine and Canada, the documentary has screened around the state, bringing awareness to the people that dedicate themselves to this uniquely Maine tradition.