Bella Coola, BC – Smayaykila Films has announced that documentary filmmaker Banchi Hanuse’s CEREMONY will have its BC premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) at 5:45 PM on October 4, 2026, at SFU Woodwards, with additional screenings at 1 PM October 6 at International Village and 12 PM October 10 on Granville Island. Hanuse will attend with a Nuxalk delegation from the film.
The film arrives at VIFF following wins at two major North American documentary festivals: the Documentary Spotlight Audience Award at SXSW and the DGC Special Jury Prize at Hot Docs.
For 26 years, the ooligan have not returned to the Bella Coola River. From a ramshackle trailer, Nuxalk Radio begins asking why.
What emerges from the airwaves is bigger than the disappearance of a fish: settler recordings, buried declarations, decades of silence—and a land claim filed the day smallpox arrived. As the past surfaces, a family rebuilds in a village emptied for a century. When a trespass notice comes, they keep building. A Nuxalk biologist dreams the fish are coming home. Beneath the river’s surface, something is already moving.
At the heart of CEREMONY is an older law: the fish and the people return together, or not at all.
Twelve years in the making, CEREMONY follows the long, uncertain work of bringing a suppressed history back into the light and asks what it means for a people, a place and a vanished fish to return together.
Banchi Hanuse works in film and radio, co-founding Nuxalk Radio to support Nuxalk language revitalization, uphold Nuxalk Nationhood and advocate for the stewardship of Nuxalk homelands. Her acclaimed film Aitamaako’tamisskapi Natosi: Before the Sun (2023) won the Big Sky Award and is now streaming on Paramount+ Canada, CBC Gem and APTN Lumi.
ABOUT THE FILM
CEREMONY is directed and produced by Slts’lani Banchi Hanuse, written by Hanuse and Jessica Mayhew, with cinematography by Luke Connor and Jean-Philippe Marquis, and edited by Erin Cumming and Sarah Taylor. The film’s animator is Jay White, animation artist Anuximana Jade Hanuse, composer Jesse Zubot, and sound by Joe Watts. The documentary features Megan F. Moody, Qwaxw Siwallace, Snuxyaltwa “DJ Y” Deric Snow, Nuskmata Jacinda Mack, Q’umulha Schooner, Sunhwrna Schooner, Jason E. Moody, Snxakila Clyde Tallio, Kmalsuuncw Orden Mack, Peter Solhjell, and Tom Swanky.
CEREMONY was made possible through the support of the Indigenous Screen Office, National Geographic Society, Hot Docs Crosscurrents Doc Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, National Film Board of Canada – FAP, and British Columbia Arts Council with additional support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Makeway Foundation, Nature United, Tula Foundation and with appreciation to Cannes Docs Marché du Film, Planet in Focus Film Festival, and National Screen Institute.
Watch the trailer for CEREMONY:
