Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers  | Canada | 2021
124 min | Partial Subtitles | CC Available
Supported by Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy

A portrait of a community facing radical change, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy brings humanity and compassion to the substance-use crisis and drug-poisoning epidemic on the Kainai First Nation in southern Alberta. Filmmaker Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers welcomes viewers to witness the collective work of her community.

Surrounded by tall prairie grass gently swaying in the wind stands Elle- Máijá’s mother, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers, a family doctor and community harm-reduction advocate who teaches that, “Kimmapiiyipitssini means compassion... in our way of believing, if you help people out then you are blessed to continue to do that, and so our People are supposed to give what they have or what they can to help.” Kimmapiiyipitssini is at the heart of the harm-reduction strategy in this Blackfoot community.

People with a substance-use disorder, both in active use and in recovery, come together with frontline workers to issue an urgent call to action: change is a matter of life or death for many people. Set among the smooth curves of the foothills of southern Alberta, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy holds these stories in love and hope for the future.

DIRECTOR BIO

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer and actor. She is a member of the Kainai First Nation (Blood Tribe, Blackfoot Confederacy) as well as Sámi from Norway. She was named the 2018 Sundance Film Institute’s Merata Mita Film Fellow and is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Lab and the Hot Docs Accelerator Lab. Her short documentary Bihttoš was selected as one of TIFF’s Top Ten Canadian shorts and also won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the Seattle International Film Festival. She acted in and co-wrote and co-directed (with Kathleen Hepburn) the narrative feature The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, which premiered at the Berlinale in 2019 and received the Toronto Film Critics Association and Vancouver Film Critics Circle awards for best Canadian film