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A free screening of the documentary film Unarchived on Feb. 23, at The Old Church in Smithers

Documentary to set the record straight
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Screenshot from the NFB documentary Unarchived.

In a new National Film Board of Canada feature documentary Unarchived, co-directors Hayley Gray and Elad Tzadok highlight community archives across British Columbia to reveal some of what has been left out of the official record.

The people and places left out of traditional archives and museums are often determined by the dominant power, but as UBC’s Dr. Henry Yu states, “the process of silencing makes a lot of noise.”

Local knowledge keepers are undoing these omissions and hand-fashioning a more inclusive history through family photos, newspaper articles and scratchy old VHS tapes.

The Bulkley Valley Museum and the Smithers Public Library hosted a free screening of Unarchived at the Old Church on First Ave., in Smithers, Feb. 23.

READ MORE: Bulkley Valley Museum borrows Babine Lake bones from Canadian Museum of Nature

Featured in the film are some fascinating examples of unknown history.

For example, Ron Dutton started the BC Gay and Lesbian Archive in the 1970s by collecting protest pamphlets, posters and even cabaret sets from the earliest days of Vancouver’s gay community. Photographs in the archive date as far back as the 1890s.

In the tiny mill town of Paldi, on Vancouver Island, a remarkable intercultural community was captured on Super 8 and 16-millimetre film by the founders and their families. Paldi, named after a village in India, grew out of a Punjabi millworker’s desire to keep working after the Chilliwack mill he worked at went bankrupt. He bought it along with some co-workers and eventually moved it to the island.

There the business attracted more Punjabi, disenfranchised Japanese and Chinese immigrants and Europeans who established a unique community in the Cowichan Valley.

On the B.C. landscape, anthropologist Dr. Imogene Lim points out how plants serve as reminders of Asian communities long gone.

“These different archives tell stories of people building connections through work, play, protest, family and tradition,” a press release for the film states. “In so doing, they challenge larger institutions to re-examine and address older narratives that no longer reflect the totality of our shared experience.

“At the Trans Archive at the University of Victoria, a hidden past is documented and preserved. At the Royal BC Museum, staff work tirelessly to right historical wrongs and find a new path towards restorative justice for Indigenous people.

“Through a collage of personal interviews, archival images and footage, and deeply rooted memories, the past, present and future come together, fighting for a space where everyone is seen and everyone belongs.”



deb.meissner@interior-news.com

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