HER WORKS MAY FOCUS heavily on the various facets of Indigenous experience, both past and present, but Anishinaabe filmmaker Lisa Jackson rebuffs the notion that she is an activist voice in Canadian film. While some label her too artsy for the mainstream, and others claim she is too mainstream for the artsy community, she actively refuses to fit in the confining boxes Indigenous and BPOC filmmakers are often placed in. Jackson views herself mainly as a filmmaker who dabbles in various artistic forms—documentary, animation, drama, VR, music, and installation—to tell complex, human-centred stories that are compassionate and committed to telling the truth in a way that can be uncomfortable at times.
“We talk about truth and reconciliation, but I have heard many Indigenous people say, ‘They want the reconciliation, but they want to skip over
