A film by King Khan
The cathartic journey of rock n’ roll maniac, King Khan, as he begins to shed the skin of his three decade long musical career and decides to take care of his fragile mental state. Khan returns to the land where he was born, so-called “Canada”, and connects with the Anishnaabe, Blackfoot and Mohawk people and shines a light on the on-going genocide addressing the issues of the missing and murdered indigenous people, as well as, the devastating fentanyl epidemic. Khan is accompanied by radical-eyed German/Ukranian photographer Miron Zownir and Spanish photographer Laura Silleras. This is a brutally personal, emotional and triggering story about an artist in search of healing who returns to his birthplace and exposes the horrific evils of the colonial system, the powerful indigenous resistance trying to fight it and highlights the incredible beauty that is in danger of being erased.
notes from the participants of the film
WORDS FROM WOLF CLAN JO (aka Healing Earth Woman)
“I am from the wolf clan so I am kind of a trouble maker. But a good trouble maker. I am not afraid to stand up or speak the truth. I am from the Anishinaabe territory. We are a mass territory. We are not just different separated communities. We have to remember that. Teach that to your children. Not to be “in the box”, as they would say. Canada is not our home. Canada is nothing but a corporation for the Crown. It has no language, no sovereignty and no land. We are the original people of this land. All the tribes across Turtle Island are the original ones. There are no borders. I’ve been active for many years standing up for the land and the waters for the unborn. I’ve been committed, as my clan, to protect and cause shit for Canada. I don’t believe in Canada. It’s nothing but stolen lands. I am not afraid to say that. It is a stolen land, it doesn’t matter how much money is in it. It’s on stolen land. I have been active for many years for ground and water searching for the missing and murdered. I have been trained in foreground search. Also trained by our relatives up North where they were draining the Red River searching for our loved ones. I want to acknowledge the mums and the dads of these families of the missing. There is a strength of these mums that I will never want to know. They’ll search and they will go beyond. They will run to a spot if they see something and if they feel something… they will run there. And I will never forget the scream these mums have at the end of the day when we have to stop searching because they don’t want to stop searching. They want to continue. Think of winter time for these families. It’s hard for them, because they can’t search. I want to be truthful here for me and for the system and this is when I get in trouble: I believe in the clan system, I don’t believe in the chief and council System which has done nothing but oppress our people. Canada uses that against us. We need to get away from these systems. All they care about is money and profit. Our children are dying, overdosing and commiting suicide like we never had before. When I talk about this, I’m talking about everything, because it’s about the land, the waters, the air, the fire. The Missing and murdered is a part of this because when they attack, they attack the same way they are treating this land. They think that we are just like this land that they can come and strip from our body parts, cut us into pieces and throw us in the Red River, or dump us in these landfills. Why isn’t Canada reacting?Because they don’t care about us!
Why do we have brothers and sisters waiting in the dumps to get searched? Our women are being attacked in this country, in this continent. Think for a second. Think of your daughters right now. Imagine them being cut up, raped, murdered and lost under a bunch of trash??
That’s what they think of us in this country. On this continent they think we are trash. But we are not trash. We are the backbone of this continent. We give life. We love our grandchildren, we love our children, we love our people and we need to get away from this oppression that is causing us to fight amongst each other. We are the casualties and prisoners of this war. But the war is not over. I speak with force because I want a safe place for my daughters and my grandchildren. I want us to remain as our people and go back to what we know and who we were as the original people, as signatories, as clan mothers and get out of this patriarchy crap they forced on us. That’s not our way. Our women are the way… the traditional, tribal way. But we can’t do this unless our sisters are healed, we have to work with our brothers. We can’t be head hunted. That’s what is happening. My father was murdered and my uncle is still missing to this day. So when we talk of the missing and murdered women and girls, don’t forget about our missing fathers, brothers and sons too.”
WHO AM I?
By Iakenhniseriiostha McGregor
Oh Canada
Our home on stolen native land
Fake Trash Love
In all thy sons command
But the true north ain’t free no more
In this psychological warfare
You get indoctrinated
There are two evils and you must choose
Living in a world that accepts abuse
Neglect
And that’s the one which you choose to elect
You must forget
You was the slippery serpent in the path
Slithering through the grass
Genocide try to erase me
And take my spirit
But I’m singing way too loud
Saying I wont hear it
But naw…
They broke more than 500 treaties
They destroyed their mother
Then they killed each other
My truth is a power lift
I’m not afraid to share my gift
I am not afraid to be alive
And I am not afraid to die
I am not a number in this equation
Ain’t even a denominator
I am the problem however
I stand in the way of your endeavor
I won’t buy into your fear
when i can’t afford it
The revolution won’t be televised
Because it is illegal to record it
And you can believe the lie
That these evils are not interconnected
Like a thread
But pull this edge and see it all come apart
Pick apart the pebbles
Savor in the flower’s juice
I can hear the ancestors
Screaming from the roots
Walk a while in my moccasins
And maybe I’ll think of walking in your shoes
Push me down I’ll never bruise
Lift me up I’ll bring you up too
And to distinguish the individuality
In each generation means nothing
When you regularly breed ignorance into the next
God, everything’s an argument
Nothing’s a discussion
Creator please help I’m trying
I need to fix something
And Imma help everybody
Even if they told me I was nothing
But i came from nothing
So that must mean something
Miracles happen everyday
And everybody think nothing of it
Egos are thriving so they’re way too above it
Don’t have time for that magical thinking
Even though this world is a magical thing
Please why am I always the one
that has to do all of the thinking
I’ll be on my rez
Please don’t stress me with that screenplay
Running from the man everywhere I go
I see the lies that he say
But who am I?
Chainsaw Magazine 