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WORLD FILM PREMIERE – Toronto – Hamilton ++

I have a very exciting announcement. I have been secretly working on a new film about our Walking Through the Fire project. And we are premiering it in Toronto on November 1!

This special film brings the magic of collaboration to the screen, with award-winning First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists from across Turtle Island joined by Billboard charting/6x CFMA winners Sultans of String!

NOV 1 – TORONTO: https://WalkingToronto.eventbrite.ca 

Opening remarks with Dr. Duke Redbird, and Artist meet & greet VIP Reception with live music. Film will be followed by a Q&A panel with artists from the film including Dr. Duke Redbird, Shannon Thunderbird, Marc Merilaïnen, Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk, as well as filmmaker and Sultans of String producer Chris McKhool.  Presented by Redbird Therapy Centre and Cecil Community Centre, with 100% of your ticket price donated to the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto.

NOV 2 – VANCOUVER: Tix link coming soon

NOV 14 – WILMOT: Tix link coming soon

NOV 17 – HAMILTON: https://www.thewestdale.ca/event/sultans-of-string-walking-through-the-fire-2/

DEC 6 – ST CATHARINES:  Tix link coming soon

Click here to watch the 2 min trailer  https://youtu.be/wWSZUduo5Kk

Walking Through the Fire: Visual Album is a musical film experience unlike any other. From Métis fiddling to an East Coast Kitchen Party, rumba to rock, to the drumming of the Pacific Northwest, experience the beauty and diversity of music from Turtle Island with Elder and poet Dr. Duke Redbird, the Métis Fiddler Quartet, Ojibwe/Finnish Singer-Songwriter Marc Meriläinen (Nadjiwan), Coast Tsm’syen Singer Shannon Thunderbird, The North Sound from the Prairies, Blues singer Crystal Shawanda, Heavy-Wood guitarist Don Ross, Northern Cree pow wow group, Dene singer-songwriter Leela Gilday, Inuit Throat Singers and more!  Experience in full DOLBY ATMOS. 80 Minutes.

“The very fact that you’re doing this tells me that you believe in the validity of our language, you believe in the validity of our art and our music and that you want to help to bring it out. And that’s really what’s important, is for people to have faith that we can do this”
The Honourable Murray Sinclair, Ojibwe Elder and former chair of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission

Book your tix today!

A central theme running through Walking Through The Fire is the need for the truth of Indigenous experience to be told before reconciliation can begin in earnest. Embedded in the title is the energy of rebirth: fire destroys, but it also nourishes the soil to create new growth, beauty, and resiliency. Walking Through The Fire ensures that we emerge on the other side together, stronger and more unified.

Sultans of String created this project in the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, and Final Report that asks for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to work together as an opportunity to show a path forward. Says bandleader Chris McKhool (whose grandfather was a stowaway from Lebanon at the turn of the last century), “We know that as a society we can’t move ahead without acknowledging and reflecting on the past. Before reconciliation can occur, the full truth of the Indigenous experience in this country needs to be told, so we’ve been calling on Indigenous artists to share with us their stories, their experience, and their lives, so we settler Canadians can continue our learning about the history of genocide, residential schools, and of inter-generational impacts of colonization.”

“The place that we have to start is with truth. Reconciliation will come sometime way in the future, perhaps, but right now, truth is where we need to begin the journey with each other. As human beings, we have to acquire that truth”
Dr. Duke Redbird – Chippewa/Anishinaabe Elder and poet

PREVIOUS FILM AWARDS
WON:
Cannes World Film Festival Best
Istanbul Film Festival
Vancouver Independent Film Festival
Lightbox International Film Festival
Boston Independent Film Awards
LA Independent Film Channel Festival
Hollywood International Golden Age Festival
Scarab Short Film Festival

SELECTED:
Paris Movie Festival
California Indies
Montreal Independent Film Festival
8th Music Film Festival
Folk in Film Festival
Canadian Folk Music Awards
Luminato Festival