“What we put on screen is etched in time, right?”
Those were the words of Sonia Bonspille Boileau, the creative mind behind 2019 film Rustic Oracle. The formative role of art in building self-esteem and creating social identity is a well-documented fact, and in her artistic process the Mohawk filmmaker challenges the discrepancy between representations of Indigenous women as victims that she’d seen growing up versus her lived truth: she has always been surrounded by strong women.