3x JUNO nominees and 6x Canadian Folk Music Award winners Sultans of String are kicking off the New Year and beyond with a free screening of their award-winning film WALKING THROUGH THE FIRE, that just won Best Musical Film and Best Soundtrack at the Cannes World Film Festival. This powerful film production is unlike any other, bringing the magic of collaboration to the screen with award-winning First Nations, Métis, Inuit artists across Turtle Island/Canada.
This Free Screening is open to the public and also includes a Q&A moderated by Joel Elliot, along with producer Chris McKhool and several artists from the project, including Marc Meriläinen, Shannon Thunderbird, and Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk.
Join them on Saturday, February 22, 2025, from 2:15 PM to 4:00 PM at Le Centre Sheraton Montreal Hotel, East Room – Level 4 (1201 René-Lévesque Blvd W, Montréal, Quebec H3B 2L7). This event is free, open to the public, and it’s free.
“We are so excited to be able to present our collaborations that showcase and amplify Indigenous voices, while also engaging our audiences with access to these powerful artists in talkback sessions” says bandleader/producer and Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal recipient Chris McKhool.
A central theme running through Walking Through The Fire is the need for the truth of Indigenous experience to be told before reconciliation can begin in earnest. Embedded in the title is the energy of rebirth: fire destroys, but it also nourishes the soil to create new growth, beauty, and resiliency.
Sultans of String created this project in the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, and Final Report that asks for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to work together as an opportunity to show a path forward.
Says McKhool “We know that as a society we can’t move ahead without acknowledging and reflecting on the past. Before reconciliation can occur, the full truth of the Indigenous experience in this country needs to be told, so we’ve been calling on Indigenous artists to share with us their stories, their experience, and their lives, so we settler Canadians can continue our learning about the history of genocide, residential schools, and of inter-generational impacts of colonization.”
