How do you humanize an Internet meme? Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) filmmaker Damien Eagle Bear set out to do this in his Telus originals documentary #skoden, which will premiere at Hot Docs.
As many rez kids will tell you, Skoden is a popular slang term in Indigenous communities, meaning “let’s go then”—i.e., it’s time to take action or engage in battle. Some interpret it as a message of resistance. This probably explains why “Skoden” showed up as graffiti on a Sudbury water tower in 2018. There’s even an annual Skoden Indigenous Film Festival at Simon Fraser University.
Skoden took on new life in the mid-2010s. This came after a homeless, poverty-stricken, and disheveled Indigenous man was photographed with his fists raised, ready to defend himself. The image went viral on social media, prompting Indigenous people to apply the hashtag #skoden as a term of endearment.
“There is something special about this photo,” Eagle Bear says in his film. “It keeps pulling people in. Everyone claims to have a connection to it.”
But through his research, Eagle Bear discovered that this photo appeared back in 2010 in a viciously racist video. He reports that the creators’ intentions were clear: they did not see the person in the image as a human being. So, Eagle Bear set out to tell his story.
It turns out that the director had interviewed this man, Pernell Bad Arm, years earlier while filming people at a Lethbridge homeless shelter. And Eagle Bear was able to draw on that footage for his documentary.
A three-dimensional portrait emerges through the director’s illuminating interviews with Pernell’s cousin Charlene Brown Weasel, Pernell’s friend Mark Brave Rock, Blood Tribe councillor Travis Plaited Hair, former Lethbridge shelter case manager Deanna Vincent, and others. Snappy editing, evocative cinematography, and Melody McKiver’s original compositions add texture and emotion.
However, #skoden is more than a biography of a homeless Indigenous man in Lethbridge. It also speaks volumes about Indigenous-settler relations in southern Alberta and the shortcomings of the housing-first approach to social services. In addition, #skoden explores the kinship of Blood Tribe members living rough in Lethbridge, and how Indigenous people across Turtle Island rallied around one of their own.
It’s sometimes said that a photograph tells a thousand stories. But in the case of Pernell Bad Arm, a single photograph did not tell his life story. It took an entire film to do that. Settlers would be wise to watch it if they really want to understand what’s taking place in the streets of the nation.
Hot Docs will present the world premiere of #skoden at 8:30 p.m. on April 29 in the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. The festival will present another screening at 11:45 a.m. on May 1 in TIFF Lightbox 1. For more information and tickets, visit the Hot Docs website. Learn more about the communities that make up Canada on the Toronto Spark website. Follow Charlie Smith on Bluesky @charliesmithvcr.bsky.social. Also, follow the Toronto Spark on Bluesky @torontospark.bsky.social.
