Armand Garnet Ruffo’s Award-winning Movie ‘A Windigo Tale’ wins Best Picture

Carleton Professor Armand Garnet Ruffo’s film A Windigo Tale won a bevy of awards at the 2010 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco on November 13.

The film, which deals with the intergenerational impact of the residential school system in Canada, framed as both a mystery and a ghost story of sorts, won best picture, best actress and best supporting actress.

First written as a play, it won a CBC Arts Performance Award in 2001. Ruffo decided to turn it into a movie, which he wrote and directed.

Says Ruffo: “Due to financing issues it took much longer than expected to finish. Making a feature film in Canada is no small feat.”

A Windigo Tale has previously won Best Picture and Best Actress (Jani Lauzon) at the 2010 Dreamspeakers Film Festival. It was selected for the Ontario Film Festival and has been shown in numerous film festivals.

Background:
Born and raised in Chapleau, Armand is a professor of Aboriginal Literature in the Department of English. A former director of the Centre for Aboriginal Education, Research and Culture, his work is strongly influenced by his Ojibwe heritage.

The film is named after the evil Windigo Manitou, which according to Ojibway mythology is an insatiable cannibalistic creature. “I think what went on in residential schools was a kind of consumption of the human spirit. I didn’t want to write a didactic expose so the story is framed as both a mystery and a ghost story of sorts.”