How do you say ‘cat’ in Blackfoot? POOS, an animated film by Celestine Twigg, screens at CIFF

Celestine Twigg, the late Troy Emery Twigg, Harrison Red Crow and Adrian Stimson are part of the team that created POOS, an animated short film that screens at the Calgary International Film Festival Monday, Sept. 23. (Photo: XstineCook)

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.

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 a Blackfoot animation all-star team that included language keeper Harrison Red Crow, artist Adrian Stimson, musician Lance Tailfeathers, animator Tank Standing Buffalo, editor Neil Evenson, illustrator Tonka Pirtikoski and her son, Troy Emery Twigg.

The group worked together to develop a storyline, artwork, storyboards, script (in English and Blackfoot), animation, soundtrack and voice recordings.

“POOS is a beautiful example of Blackfoot storytelling,” said Stimson, in a media release, “through animation, the transference and preservation of the language is so important for the survival of the Blackfoot way of being.”

Cook co-wrote the script with Celestine and Troy Emery Twigg, who died last Aug. 30.

He was an award-winning dancer, actor and director who has performed around the world and was one of the founders of and a past artistic director of Making Treaty 7, Calgary’s only Indigenous-run theatre company.

POOS is dedicated to his memory.

It will be screened as part of Shorts: Alberta Spirit at 7:45 p.m. Monday, at Scotiabank Chinook, Cinema 10.

It is also being screened at the New West Film Festival in New Westminster, B.C., in October and at the Red Nation International Film Festival in Los Angeles in November.

For more information about the Calgary International Film Festival, go here.

To donate to a fund for travel to attend the POOS screening in Los Angeles, go here.

To view BLAP cartoons, go here.

For POOS tickets, go here.