for immediate release:
Durham Region International Film Festival’s summer drive-in series returns to Whitby this month with acclaimed Canadian films
Whitby, ON - Summer drive-ins are back! This month, the Durham Region International Film Festival (DRIFF) explores ideas of Indigenous identity and belonging with two award-winning films by inspiring Canadian directors.
DRIFF’s summer drive-in series, Shifting the Narrative, returns to Whitby this summer bringing a feature-length film and an accompanying short film to the big screen on the third Thursday in June, July, and August.
Event-goers can catch the first feature-length film, Beans, preceded by the short documentary, This Ink Runs Deep, at DRIFF’s drive-in headquarters at the Town of Whitby Municipal Building, 575 Rossland Rd. E., on Thursday, June 16 at dusk.
Beans has won several awards including Best Picture at the Canadian Screen Awards in 2021. The film is inspired by director Tracey Deer’s personal experience as a child during the 1990 Oka Crisis. It’s a story about a Mohawk girl on the cusp of adolescence who must grow up fast and become her own kind of warrior during the armed stand-off.
In collaboration with the DRIFF Programming committee, Deer personally selected emerging filmmaker Asia Youngman’s short documentary, This Ink Runs Deep, to precede her feature presentation.
Youngman’s film features Indigenous tattoo artists from across Canada who are reviving ancestral traditions that disappeared during colonization. Through the film, we learn about the practices that were thought to be lost forever, and how their revival reflects a reawakening of Indigenous identity.
In a DRIFF-exclusive conversation between the two filmmakers, Youngman asks what inspired Deer to make her film:, “I was 12 years old when I lived through the Oka Crisis. Even back then my dream was to one day… tell the story from the point of view of a child and from the perspective in the way that I lived it… It's been the scariest project for me to take on to really dig back into what was the most traumatic time of my life…The process was long – it was hard – but in the end there’s been great healing for me to finally put that story out there and feel seen.”
Continuing the creative conversation beyond the drive-in, the full recorded conversation between these filmmakers is available at driff.ca.
Visit driff.ca/drive-in-screenings for more information on this screening, as well as the ones that follow on July 21 and August 18. Tickets to each event will be $20 per vehicle – good for as many people as there are seatbelts – and can be purchased at https://www.seatgiantevents.ca/event/driff-shifting-the-narrative
About DRIFF:
DRIFF is a not-for-profit film festival rooted in the communities of Durham. DRIFF will engage a diverse network of audiences, filmmakers, and collaborators to promote film as a form of creative expression and a catalyst for community building. Find out more at driff.ca.
Media contact:
Laurie Turner, laurie@driff.ca
Durham Region International Film Festival
www.driff.ca | @catchthedriff
