A Spotted Fawn Productions and the National Film Board of Canada co-production

Dove, a gender-shifting warrior, uses their Indigenous medicine (Inkwo) to protect their community from an unburied swarm of terrifying creatures.

Two lifetimes from now the world hangs in the balance. Dove, a young, enigmatic, gender-shifting warrior, discovers the gifts and burdens of their Inkwo (medicine) to defend against an army of hungry, ferocious monsters. Dove’s courage, resilience and alliance with the Earth culminates in a battle against these flesh-consuming creatures, who become stronger with each body and soul they devour. Inkwo for When the Starving Return is a call to action to fight and protect against the forces of greed around us.

A mesmerizing tale of courage, identity and the enduring power of truth, Inkwo for When the Starving Return is an animated adaptation of an original short story by award-winning Tlicho Dene storyteller Richard Van Camp. Spotted Fawn Productions, led by Michif/Metis director Amanda Strong, carried the story into its innovative film form. This collective vision shines through in tender moments, urgent choices and epic confrontations that blur the boundaries between the physical and the supernatural.

The film features the extraordinary voice talent of Paulina Alexis (Critics Choice Award winner), Tantoo Cardinal (Order of Canada) and versatile television producer, actor and storyteller Art Napoleon.

Spine-tingling and thought-provoking, Inkwo unravels the saga of a young, enigmatic, genderfluid warrior. Faced with external threats and internal struggles, this protagonist must forge their identity while embracing the power of Inkwo and taking a stand to defend the remaining humans and animals on Earth.

The gift of Inkwo, rooted in medicinal knowledge and the healing arts of true humanity, propels Dove on a perilous path. They must combat violent beings that possess the ability to take spirits from humans, leaving eerie, voided copies in their wake. Throughout their quest, Dove forms a bond with a frog helper and forges alliances that transcend the boundaries between human and animal. This unlikely fellowship unites against the encroaching horde.

Inkwo for When the Starving Return is a call to action, a rallying cry to fight and protect against evil forces and restore the balance of our planet.

It’s rare for a story to remain timeless within an exceedingly long production schedule. I vividly remember getting goosebumps when Richard Van Camp invited me into his “Wheetago War” universe to create an animated film. His short story offered a balance of terror and beauty and challenged me to explore important and relatable topics: the gender spectrum, greed and destruction of the land, and the return of ancestral medicine and teachings. With this story, I knew we were embarking on something special, and it was my dream to lead this production and process into new creative and technical territories.

The process ignited the project’s path of dreaming and trusting the unknown journey ahead. To do this in a way that honours the complexities and nuances of a story requires time. The label “short film” tends to shrink the extensive scope of the work undertaken at every step. Inkwo for When the Starving Return was woven together carefully and collaboratively, pulling into it important backstories and context from Richard’s bigger world. For seven years, collective hands and minds treaded carefully down our path of growing and artfully creating Inkwo for When the Starving. Its title offered both the beauty and burden to carry and represent.

The many layers of this story drew me inward. As a person who regularly shifts within the spectrum, I resonated with the positionality of gender fluidity. I also resonated with the discomfort of the “creatures”—their burden and how to properly represent them in a way that was responsible to the power they hold. What did it mean to write about them and build puppets of these creatures that hold such poisonous energy? Do we remove them? Name them? Embrace that they are very much a part of our world? What does it mean to summon them knowing that they have been waiting for this moment to rebuild themselves from Western society’s neglect and greed? It felt like the right time to advance the physical builds and capabilities of our characters, to witness the magic on screen when the still frames begin to blend in motion.

This story is a call to action in the face of what two lifetimes from now could become. Indigenous futurisms are important spaces for dreaming our worlds and how things might be. What will our world be like? In this case, Richard set the bar for Dove’s future. It was important to me to ensure that I was the right person to tell this story. Working with Richard and his Elders brought Protocols and language into the project, which we integrated into the process of developing the film’s characters, environment and costume design. This is indicative of how the making of Inkwo for When the Starving Return has truly been, at its core, a collaborative and community effort. In addition to addressing pressing sociopolitical, economic and environmental problems faced by industrial Western society, this is a film that brings us back to the moral compass of Indigenous oral storytelling.

It’s a touching experience and a responsibility to dive deep into written worlds, to build a wireframe that can lift words off the page and have them dance into motion. Collaboration is a gift, and the gift is in the making. It’s a precious place to envision what is possible when the sum of talents, and passion for a story, collide. It’s a terrifying, mysterious and organic journey.

Amanda Strong is a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation. She grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, where alongside her late maternal grandmother, Olivine, she was actively involved in Métis community service and politics. Née Bousquet, her grandmother was born and raised in St. Boniface, Manitoba, and Strong’s family lines are readily recognizable Red River Métis families: Bousquet, Carriere, Wilkie, Azure, Fisher and Laframboise. They were active members of the historic Red River communities, including St. Boniface, Lorette, St. Vital, Pembina and Turtle Mountain, spanning both sides of the border. Her family participated in the Métis resistance and the Battle of Batoche, fighting for the rights of Métis and First Nations Peoples.

For Strong, being Michif/Métis is integral to her work—to live out the vision instilled by her grandmother, to show where her own family, community and nation come from, and to honour connection to her First Nations relatives and the land. Strong was also deeply honoured by her adoption in 2022 by Chief Willie Walkus of the Gwa’sala ‘Nakwaxda’xw Nations, where she was given the name T’lakwaga (Copper Woman).

When Strong isn’t immersed in parenthood and filmmaking, she can be found at the hockey rink or the baseball diamond, in community beading circles, at hide-tanning camps, Cree-language classes and other cultural or community-based activities.