Strasburg Film Festival short The Importance of Dreaming tells the story of Old lonely Owl, as he dreams of having his own family. In his travels he comes upon a large skulk of foxes playing together. Owl thinks they are beautiful and he watches over them for many days and nights. He wishes he could have such a beautiful family. One fox is different, she notices Owl and watches him. Owl flies down to meet her and showing off his charms, becomes a part of the skulk. Foxx and Owl fall in love, but their love is met with contention driving Foxx and Owl away to try to find happiness together.
This is a true legend based on a love story between a Native Canadian woman and a non-Native man, taking place sometime between 1867-1985 when the Indian Act of Canada suppressed the rights of Indigenous women married to a non-Native.
The Importance of Dreaming will be shown on Saturday, November the 10th, 1:00 PM at Strasburg Town Hall. Tickets can be found on the film’s event page.
Director Biography – Tara Audibert
Tara Audibert is a New Brunswick Artist of mixed heritage, her mother is Maliseet from Tobique First Nations, NB and her father a French American from Fort Kent, ME. The Importance of Dreaming (2017), is Tara’s first independent short film, and was awarded support from the Canada Council for the Arts and Arts NB. She founded Moxy Fox Studio in 2015 and has almost 20 years’ experience working in the animation industry as a producer, director, and animator on productions like Johnny Test, Delilah and Julius, Olliver’s Adventures for WB & Teletoon and Baby TV’s Zoom. She has illustrated several comics for First Nations education, health and awareness, one relating to the Residential Schools, “Lost Innocence”, has been placed in the Canadian Archives of Canada. In her spare time, Tara co-hosts the motivational comedy podcast No Such Thing as Grown Ups, you should check it out, Tara’s mom said she heard from someone (she doesn’t remember who), that it was funny, but has yet to confirm.
Director Statement
The Importance of Dreaming is a true story of how my parents fell in love. My mother is Wolastoqey from Tobique First Nation (Foxx), and my father was non-native French American, and twice her age (Owl). They fell in love and were married in 1974, prior to amendment Bill-C31 to the Indian Act. Women who married a non-native man lost their Native Status rights and were forced to live off reserve, cut off from their families, denied aid from the band, and even in the end were not permitted to be buried on reserve with their families. Despite everything and everyone against them, my parents didn’t care because they were in love, and they made a family with three children who received the best of both worlds and go on to teach the importance of dreaming, that you can do an be anything you dream!
My father had Alzheimer’s for many years and later passed away in his sleep. When he was alive there were times when his mind was not “with” us. This film is a legend based on his actual life, but also where I imagine his mind being those times he was not with us. This place was in his past, and dreaming of a wish that had already come true. In the film he is represented by the Owl. Space-time, relativity and Quantum theory allowed me to think about the fact that if the future could affect the past, our dreams in the future might affect what we have in the past. So you may have to forget when you are older so you can have the dreams that will happen to your younger self. In my mind that gives meaning to forgetting, and though the families suffer as well, it may be comforting to think that our loved ones are in a place that they have dreamed, and we are lucky to get them back for small moments before they must go.
