DOXA Festival: #skoden is more than a meme—it’s a film that speaks volumes about Indigenous-settler relations in Canada – Pancouver
April 14, 2025
How do you humanize an Internet meme? Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) filmmaker Damien Eagle Bear set out to do this in his Telus originals documentary #skoden, which will have its premiere at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival.
As many rez kids will tell you, Skoden is a popular slang term in Indigenous communities, meaning “let’s go then”—i.e., it’s time to take action or engage in battle. Some interpret it as a message of resistance. This probably explains why “Skoden” showed up as graffiti on a Sudbury water tower in 2018. There’s even an annual Skoden Indigenous Film Festival at Simon Fraser University.
“Skoden” took on new life in the mid-2010s. This came after an older, poverty-stricken, and disheveled Indigenous man was photographed with his fists raised, ready to defend himself. The image went viral on social media, prompting Indigenous people to apply the hashtag #skoden as a term of endearment.
