131: Remembering Jeff Barnaby

Seventh Row Podcast

Today, we pay tribute to the great films and enormous impact of Mi'gmaq filmmaker Jeff Barnaby who passed away on October 13, 2022. He is best known for writing and directing (and editing and composing for) two landmark Indigenous feature films out of Canada: Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013) and Blood Quantum (2019).

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, as well as Associate Editor Dr. Brett Pardy.

To read the show notes and get the AI-generated transcript of the episode, click here.

More about the episode

Mi'gmaq filmmaker Jeff Barnaby passed away unexpectedly from cancer on October 13, 2022. He was only 46. He is best known as the writer-director of two feature films in colonial Canada: the landmark film about residential "schools" Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013) and the popular zombie film Blood Quantum (2019). But he has also made three excellent shorts, which we hope to help people discover: From Cherry English (2004), The Colony (2007), and Etlinisigu'niet: Bleed Down (2015).

We've been huge fans of Barnaby's work and activism, and are still very much mourning the loss of this incredible talent who wasn't given the opportunities he deserved. There are so many films we will never get from him now. But we also wanted to talk about how many roadblocks were put in Barnaby's way while he was alive, preventing him from making all the films he could have and wanted to make in his time.

This episode is a tribute to Jeff Barnaby — a complicated, difficult, visionary filmmaker — and what his work has revealed about Canada and the film industry. When Barnaby died, we didn't just lose so much future work from this important filmmaker that we all wanted to see (and he wanted to make), but we also lost a huge resource of cultural knowledge of the Canadian and Indigenous Film Industries.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, as well as Associate Editor Dr. Brett Pardy.

On This Episode

• 01:51–3:45 Why are we talking about Jeff Barnaby?
• 3:45–6:26 Jeff Barnaby's unexpected passing and his huge impact on the film industry
• 6:26–10:38 Barnaby not only changed filmmaking but effected social change with his work
• 10:38–16:56 How the Canadian film funding bodies failed to support Barnaby's work in the ways it should have. We also discuss why they wanted to fund Rhymes for Young Ghouls but not Blood Quantum
• 16:56–19:44 Making films about colonial trauma without showing gratuitous violence or making trauma porn at the same time
• 19:44– 24:52 Dr. Brett Pardy on teaching Rhymes for Young Ghouls and its weighty emotional impact on the viewer. We also discuss Barnaby's use of genre to capture a settler audience and talk about colonialism. Barnaby did this without being didactic or preach. He's not there to teach; just to provoke.
• 24:52-30:21 Rhymes for Young Ghouls is so accomplished it doesn't feel like a first feature.
• 30:21-32:08 Barnaby wasn't given the opportunities he should have been given in the time that he had, even though everyone in the Canadian film industry knew how talented he was and how important his work was.
• 32:08-47:58 How Jeff Barnaby was refreshingly honest on Twitter and in interviews when discussing the realities of being an Indigenous filmmaker. Barnaby had a lot of integrity. He also worked to uplift other Indigenous artists. He was one of the most accessible filmmakers on Twitter and would regularly engage (positively) with other film fans and critics.
• 47:21-49:24 The loss of Barnaby also means the loss of a huge body of knowledge of how the Canadian film industry works to support (or fail to support) Indigenous filmmakers.
• 49:24-52:54 The lack of critical or academic interest in contemporary Canadian film, let alone Indigenous film, and how we have tried our best to fill the gap.
• 52:54-57:13 Jeff Barnaby's short films, as well as why they are worth catching up with
• 57:13-59:31 Related episodes, what's coming next on the podcast, and other wrap-up thoughts.

Show Notes on the podcast on remembering Jeff Barnaby

• Read Alex Heeney's interview with Jeff Barnaby on Blood Quantum and colonialist zombies
• Read Seventh Row's 50 favourite films of the decade which also includes Rhymes for Young Ghouls as #6.
• Watch Jeff Barnaby's short From Cherry English (2004) (Available worldwide)
• Watch Jeff Barnaby's short The Colony (2007) (Available worldwide)
• Watch Jeff Barnaby's NFB short made from archival footage, Etlinisigu'niet (Ble)ed Down (2015) (Available worldwide)
• Become a member for access to all of our upcoming episodes. This also includes most of our episodes on Indigenous films.
• Listen to our first podcast season on Women at Cannes

Related episodes

• Bonus 27: Empathy on film with Dr. Brett Pardy (FREE to everyone) - Dr. Pardy did his PhD research on how films can create empathy, and used Barnaby's Rhymes for Young Ghouls as a case study for some of his on-the-ground research.
• Ep. 39: Jeff Barnaby's Rhymes for Young Ghouls & Blood Quantum (Members only) - In this early episode of the podcast, we compare and contrast Barnaby's two features, as well as discuss how he uses genre in innovative ways, and more.
• Ep. 62: Indigenous YA, part 1 (Members Only) - We discuss three recent contemporary Indigenous YA films from Canada: Beans (2020), Monkey Beach (2020), and the TV show Trickster (2020).
• Ep. 63: Indigenous YA, part 2 (Members only) - A broader survey of Indigenous YA out of Canada from the last decade, including Rustic Oracle (2019), Tia and Piujuk (2018), The Grizzlies (2018), Kuessipan (2019), and Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013).

Where to find us

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow.

Follow Alex Heeney @bwestcineaste, Orla Smith @orlamango, and Dr. Brett Pardy @DrAntiqueiPod on Twitter.