“Through discordant pixelated images, Trevor Mack delicately reveals the trauma and devastation that too many Indigenous children in remote communities are forced to contend with.”

“...the boy’s journey starts off poignant, but builds to a grand tragedy with stark, timely relevance. It’s moving, gutting, must-see filmmaking.”

“...a meditation on family, memory and generational pain with a striking visual aesthetic...”

“The carefree childhood existence of a brother and sister is torn apart when she is forced to attend a Residential School far from home. Singular visual interpretations infuse co-director Trevor Mack’s family history with a slowly shifting tone that evokes loss and love.”

“My inspiration for the story of Clouds of Autumn came from my mother and her seven siblings being taken to residential school from the 1960s to 1970s. Growing up, I had first-hand experience of how brothers and sisters who attended and didn’t attend interacted with each other. I lost an uncle after he was deeply scarred from his experience at a residential school. And I have witnessed different forms of lateral violence. So I wanted to explore where this pain and trauma started, and focus on how those relationships began.”

“The creative vision for the film started with the idea of two young siblings playing together in the 1970s. I wanted to collaborate with fellow filmmaker Matthew Taylor Blais and incorporate Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal points of view about a story that is relevant for all Canadians. He brought a very unique vision and creative direction that helped us tell this story.

Clouds of Autumn almost plays like a river; its flow and form constantly changes as its characters evolve with the story. In the beginning the cinematography is very playful, innocent and curious, but as the film goes on the camera ends up becoming static and emotionless; something we wanted to be very prevalent in the film. We also never wanted to actually show the residential school itself, so we used the juxtaposition of sound and image to help tell the story through simple cuts and visceral experiences.”

“Attempting to create a period piece on a lower budget isn’t easy, but Mack dives in headfirst.”

“I had just moved from Williams Lake to Vancouver (British Columbia) at 19 and I was really trying to find out who I was, not only as a person but culturally as well. I was also dating a great First Nations girl at the time and she was really pushing culture into my life. I also saw the result of colonization and assimilation back home and I wanted to give a reason for my people to be proud of themselves. I think First Nations people tend to take the negatives first, but we should always be focusing on the positives; we’re still here.”

“It could have been the camping in the middle of nowhere for four days with no cell phone service, barely any resources, it could have been the 15-hour shooting days in the middle of summer, it could have been the fact that we were shooting with babies and animals, it could have been 80% of the film deleting from my editing timeline (and there was no way to recover it) so I had to re-edit it.

Every aspect of this project has been immensely challenging. But I wouldn’t give it up for the world. I’m glad my very first film tackled all of these “donts” in film. I wanted that.”