ALFF Program - Smokin’ Fish

Saturday, February 11 at 3:00pm

Dir. Cory Mann (in attendance) and Luke Griswold-Tergis
USA, 2011, 80 minutes

Cory Mann is a quirky Tlingit businessman hustling to make a dollar in Juneau, Alaska. He gets hungry for smoked salmon, nostalgic for his childhood, and decides to spend a summer smoking fish at his family’s traditional fish camp. The unusual story of his life and the untold history of his people interweave with the process of preparing traditional food as he struggles to pay his bills, keep the IRS off his back, and keep his business afloat. By turns tragic, bizarre, or just plain ridiculous, Smokin’ Fish, tells the story of one man’s attempts to navigate the messy zone of collision between the modern world and an ancient culture.

What makes this documentary from our Panhandle neighbours so compelling is the lightness Cory brings to his life at the same time as he commits himself to the ancestral ways of the coastal Tlingit. Featuring appearances by Whitehorse and Haines Junction residents, Martha Van Fleet and Marge Jackson.

Screening sponsor: Tle'Nax T'awei Group