Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers’s Kímmapiiyipitssini Brings Empathy to an Opioid Crisis

ELLE-MÁIJÁ TAILFEATHERS’ NEW FILM Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy weaves together a broad portrait of the impact of settler colonialism on Blackfoot people, through firsthand experiences of people with substance use disorder, and the frontline workers who answer the calls to treat them. Her two-hour documentary aims to show how that impact is inherently tied to substance use disorder, but the trauma doesn’t define the people.

Tailfeathers’ film starts in March 2015, on the Blood (Kainai) Nation in southern Alberta, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy, when it declared a public health emergency from opioid overdoses, and the community’s health care workers found themselves at the centre of an epidemic.

This affected two members of the Tailfeathers’ family, Dr. Esther and eventually her daughter, film artist Elle-Máijá. A family physician at the reserve’s medical clinic, Dr. Esther Tailfeathers is one of the healthcare workers who began investigating alternates to 12-step abstinence programs for substance use disorders. She journeyed to Vancouver’s downtown eastside organizations that offer harm reduction methods and a non-judgemental, more compassionate approach to drug and alcohol users, which provides them with