Animated short film created by Blackfoot language teacher screens at CIFF [Video]

An animated short about a cat named Thumper that’s narrated in Blackfoot is hitting the festival circuit this fall, including a Monday screening at the Calgary International Film Festival.

Created by Celestine Twigg, a Blackfoot language teacher at Piikani Nation Secondary School, POOS tells the story of a cat who dreams about Blackfoot culture, stories and philosophy.

Celestine Twigg, who teaches Blackfoot language at Piikani Nation Secondary School, is one of the creators of POOS. (Photo: Xstine Cook)

It’s a follow-up to the successful launch of the Blackfoot Language Animation Project (BLAP), a collaboration between Xstine Cook and Calgary Animated Objects Society (CAOS) in 2020-23, which resulted in over 100 short cartoons that illustrate different nouns and concepts with Blackfoot language narration, which were created by students in Fort Macleod and animators around the world.

Twigg worked with Xstine Cook to raise funding to make a longer film and to assemble …