New Indigenous history lab celebrates launch with new short animation – McMaster University

November 29, 2024

In 2020, when history and Indigenous studies professor Allan Downey co-created Rotinonshón:ni Ironworkers, a six-minute animated short film, it was a departure from his usual academic work of researching and writing papers and books.

But that film, which Downey co-created with former student Carlee Loft, got attention: it won Best Animated Short at the American Indian Film Festival, was selected to appear at several international film festivals, was featured at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and appeared on Alaskan Airlines flights from 2021 to 2022.

And that got Downey, who is Dakelh (Nak’azdli Whut’en, Lusilyoo Clan) thinking.

“From that experience, I realized that I’d really enjoyed the mentorship aspect of the project, and the process of creating film out of historical research,” he explains. “So I decided to establish a formal initiative that would allow us to keep doing that – to show Indigenous youth that our Indigenous histories deserve a stage. They deserve to be told in big ways, to big audiences.”