Celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day x Summer Solstice!
About the Event
🗓 Date: Friday, June 20, 2025
🕗 Time: 8:30 PM
📍 Location: UBC Residential School History and Dialogue Centre
🎞️ Free admission | Snacks provided
Presented by the Collaborative Digital Heritage Studio (CoDHerS), in collaboration with the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (IRSHDC) and the Indigenous Archeology Lab for Indigenous Futures (laLIF).
In celebration of National Indigenous Peoples Day and the Summer Solstice, we organized a screening event, celebrating Indigenous storytelling and visual brilliance. We are grateful to feature SGaawaay K’uuna (Edge of the Knife), the first-ever film made entirely in the Haida language. Co-directed by Gwaai Edenshaw and Helen Haig-Brown, this powerful story brings to life a haunting Haida legend of loss, survival, and transformation.
The Film brings to life the Haida folktale of Gaagiixid, the Haida Wildman, and was beautifully filmed and set on Haida Gwaii, off the northwest coast of British Columbia. We’re grateful to have shared this powerful story with everyone attending.
Special thanks to the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (IRSHDC) and the Indigenous Archeology Lab for Indigenous Futures (laLIF), with support from the Department of Asian Studies and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies.
About the film
Haida Gwaii, 1800s. At a seasonal fishing camp, two families endure conflict between the nobleman Adiits’ii and his best friend Kwa. After Adiits’ii causes the accidental death of Kwa’s son, he flees into the rainforest, descending into madness and transforming into Gaagiixid – “the Wildman.” When the families return in the spring, they discover Adiits’ii has survived the winter. Can he be rescued and returned to his humanity? Meanwhile, Kwa wrestles with his deepest desire – revenge.
In this spectacular rendering of a classic Haida story, life on the land is shaped by the power of the elements, where natural and supernatural forces co-exist. Co-directed by Haida filmmaker Gwaai Edenshaw and Tsilhqot’in filmmaker Helen Haig-Brown, this ambitious project was a collaboration with Isuma, the team behind the landmark film Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. Made with a Haida cast and in collaboration with the Haida Council, Edge of the Knife proves that cinema can be at once a powerful vessel for riveting storytelling and a vital act of Indigenous language and culture revitalization.
Stay Tuned for Future Events!🎥
Additional Readings
Behind the Camera: making the first Haida-language feature
- Interview: Gwaai Edenshaw on Edge of the Knife (Seventh Row, 2018) – candid discussion of script workshops, dialect coaching, and community-run production.
- Reviving a Lost Language of Canada Through Film (The New York Times, 11 June 2017) – on-set reportage that traces how Haida elders, linguists, and first-time actors collaborated and how the process became a living language-lab.
- A New Gaagiixiid Story (Walker Art Center Magazine, 2018) – co-directors Edenshaw & Haig-Brown unpack how Haida cosmology shaped the film’s visuals.
- The Haida Language on Film, in Depth and at Last (Canadian Art, 2018) – long-form profile tracing Edenshaw’s move from carving to cinema.
- VIFF Review: Edge of the Knife, Immersed in the 19th Century (ScreenAnarchy, 2018) – a critical reading that spotlights the film’s atmosphere and authenticity.
Language revitalization through film & media
- SG̲aawaay K’uuna: Indigenous Language Revitalization (ResearchGate, peer-reviewed paper, 2022) – analyzes how the production process doubled as Haida-language immersion.
- Keeping Haida Alive through Film and Drama (ScholarSpace paper, 2021) – case study connecting community theatre to the feature-film project.
- Indigenous Language Revitalization Using TEK-nology (Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, Taylor & Francis, 2022) – reviews digital tools that dovetail with film projects.