New York’s premiere of Jeff Barnaby’s suspenseful horror film, Rhymes for Young Ghouls, comes to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian Oct. 30 at 6 p.m. The film screening is free and open to the public, part of the museum’s “At the Movies” series. The film’s lead actress, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs (Mohawk), will be in attendance, and following the screening, Barnaby will be available for discussion.
Barnaby writes in the film’s press materials, “If I could sum up a mission statement with one phrase, ‘I want to make being Indian cool again.’ I want to take our images, our lives, our languages and represent them truthfully on screen.”
Rhymes marks Barnaby’s feature film directorial debut; he also wrote the screenplay. It centers on Aila, played by Jacobs, a 15-year-old member of the fictional Red Crow Mi’gMaq reservation in 1976. A government decree entails that she and everyone else on the reservation under the age of 16 must attend residential school, where they are at the mercy of a sadistic Indian agent who runs it. She must choose to run or fight, and “Mi’gMaq don’t run.”
The script was honored with the Tribeca Film Festival Creative Promise Award, and the film made its world premiere at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. The cast also features Glen Gould (Mi’gMaq), Roseanne Supernault (Métis) and Brandon Oakes (Mohawk).
A second screening with Barnaby and Jacobs will take place Nov. 1 at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
The National Museum of the American Indian’s George Gustav Heye Center is located at One Bowling Green in New York City, across from Battery Park. The museum is free and open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Call (212) 514-3700 for general information and (212) 514-3888 for a recording about the museum’s public programs. By subway, the museum may be reached by the 1 to South Ferry, the 4 or 5 to Bowling Green or the R or W to Whitehall Street. The museum’s website is www.AmericanIndian.si.edu.
The museum’s Film and Video Center may be reached at (212) 514-3737 or FVC@si.edu.
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