FESTIVAL PREMIERE
Can You Feel It Now?
Director: Isak Vaillancourt
Set in a speculative future on Turtle Island, this poetic short follows the Welcomer, a vessel of First Nations resilience, and the Arrivant, a traveller from the African diaspora. As ancestral dreams shape reality, their paths converge to reimagine First Contact – not as a clash, but as a shared act of kinship and healing.
Through rhythmic storytelling rooted in Afro-Indigenous futurism, they forge a sanctuary of solidarity, where Black and Indigenous stories are entwined in resistance, memory, and hope.
CAST & CREDITS
Director
Isak Vaillancourt
Producer
Isak Vaillancourt
Writer
Connor Lafortune, Ra'anaa Yaminah Ekundayo
Key Cast
Connor Lafortune, Ra'anaa Yaminah Ekundayo
DIRECTORS BIO
Isak Vaillancourt is an award-winning director, multidisciplinary artist, and communications professional of Somali-French ancestry. His practice spans photography, filmmaking, and arts-based programming.
His creative work harnesses bold, dynamic imagery to examine the entanglement of identity and aesthetics through a lens of Black healing and decolonization. For Isak, cultural creation is a form of liberation. His short films have been officially selected and screened at regional, national, and international festivals.
Isak is also Co-Founder and Director of Black Lives Matter – Sudbury, a non-profit organization dedicated to dismantling systemic racism and advancing cultural production in Northern Ontario.
DIRECTORS STATEMENT
Can You Feel It Now? reimagines a future shaped by ancestral knowledge and resilience, where Black and Indigenous futures intersect in kinship and healing. Inspired by Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism, the film tells the story of the Welcomer and the Arrivant, two figures who meet not in conflict but in solidarity, exchanging wisdom to reclaim a shared vision of liberation.
Through poetry in English, Anishinaabemowin, Yoruba, Fula, Swahili, and Kirundi, the film challenges conventional narratives of First Contact, presenting it as a moment of mutual recognition.
This project reflects my belief in the power of artistic creation to foster Black and Indigenous solidarity, honoring our shared histories and collective futures. As a Black queer man of Somali-French heritage, I aim to build bridges of resistance and unity, rooted in the memory, culture, and wisdom we share.
