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Epilogue
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173 Epilogue norman, oklahoma—june 2011 It is a blistering hot Oklahoma summer evening, and I am on my way to see a movie when I check Facebook on my iPhone. To my delighted surprise I see the following post in my newsfeed: “Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival Kickstarter Campaign!! June 21, 2011 W2 Community Center.” What? An Indigenous Media Arts Festival starting back up again in Vancouver? I excitedly click the “Like” button so that I can be added to their Facebook page. Sure enough, on the information page for the organization is an explanation that this event is a fundraiser to hold an Indigenous Media Arts Festival in November 2011. The June 21st event, in honor of Canada’s National Aboriginal Day, will feature a mini–film festival and will showcase both Kevin Lee Burton ’s Nikamowin and Helen Haig-Brown’s ҜEҜAnx: The Cave. I am envious that I cannot be in Vancouver for the fundraising event, but I am pleased beyond words that another Indigenous Film Festival will once again be held in Vancouver. I click on the link to see who is involved with organizing this event and see that several of the people who were involved in imag’s media training programs and festival activities in 2003 and 2004 are now taking up the reins to begin a new Indigenous Media Arts Festival in Vancouver. 174 Epilogue Facebook and Filmmakers Facebook has become an incredibly vital link for me to stay connected with many of the Aboriginal filmmakers with whom I work in Vancouver. In fact, I initially joined Facebook as a way to connect with these filmmakers, and this social networking site provides an invaluable way for me to keep up with the latest developments in Vancouver’s Aboriginal media world as well as the latest projects of the filmmakers with whom I work. Through Facebook I find out when films are in production, when a filmmaker receives a grant, when casting calls are announced, when production help or equipment is needed, and when films have their premieres. These connections and social networks with filmmakers have become especially important given that I now live and work in Oklahoma, and it is harder to return to Vancouver for extended periods of time. The connections maintained with filmmakers on Facebook are also important because, like many anthropologists’ collaborators, they are my dear friends. One challenge to maintaining my connection to the Aboriginal filmmaking community in Vancouver is that many of the filmmakers with whom I worked between 2002 and 2005 have moved away. In fact, about half of the filmmakers that I interviewed between 2003 and 2004 no longer live in Vancouver. There are many reasons for their departure from Vancouver. Some have returned to their traditional territories, some have taken jobs in other cities, some have had family obligations that drew them away from Vancouver, others have left to attend university, while some have been priced out of Vancouver. The increasing cost of living and housing expenses in Vancouver have pushed many artists and filmmakers out of the city in search of more affordable housing. The gentrification of Vancouver as a result of the 2010 Winter Olympics also had a dramatic impact on the city and on the cost of living. One section of Second Avenue in False Creek, a main thoroughfare near where IMAG’s office was located on Main Street, was developed [34.204.52.16] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 03:34 GMT) Epilogue 175 into the Olympic Village to house athletes and then later sold as apartment units. The average cost of a detached house in Vancouver in 2000 was around $400,000, whereas by 2010 it had jumped to over $1,000,000.1 As of 2011 Vancouver has the highest average rent in Canada, with the average rent at $1,181 per month.2 Vancouver is the second most expensive city in Canada, behind Toronto, and is considered to have the most unaffordable housing in Canada.3 The 2010 Winter Olympics cost approximately $6 billion for Vancouver, a city that paradoxically is voted as one of the most livable cities in the world and yet is also home to Canada’s poorest postal code, the Downtown Eastside, a neighborhood with a high Aboriginal population. It is still unclear whether Vancouver will fully recover the costs of the Winter Olympics, but what is clear is that the cost of living in Vancouver, which had already been on the...