How Director Elle-Maija Tailfeathers Discovered a Path to Healing on the Frontlines of the Opioid Crisis
Jennie Punter Director and producer Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers opens her documentary “Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy” with a peaceful, slow-motion scene of buffalo calves grazing alongside their mothers while the voice of the filmmaker’s mother, a family doctor, is heard gently speaking to a mother about her baby.A coproduction between Tailfeathers’ Seen Through Woman Productions and the National Film Board of Canada, which is also selling the film, “Kímmapiiyipitssini” is a chronicle of her community’s steady efforts to confront its substance-use crisis and heal by cultivating empathy through harm reduction.During its world premiere run this week in Hot Docs’ Canadian Spectrum competition program, the film was the centerpiece