Can You Feel It Now

Creative Team: Ra’anaa Yaminah Ekundayo, Connor Lafortune & Isak Vaillancourt
Director & Producer: Isak Vaillancourt
Cast & Writers: Ra’anaa Yaminah Ekundayo & Connor Lafortune
Language Specialist (Anishinaabemowin): Connor Lafortune
Finance Coordinator - Ra’anaa Yaminah Ekundayo
Cinematographer, Colourist, and VFX: Mathieu Taillefer
First Assistant Director: Riley McEwen
Editor - Bosmo Kosmerly Composer: Emilio Portal
Production Assistants: Casey McGee, Sam Barry & Selina Stos
Makeup Artists: Melissa Dunwell & Adonia Dunwell
Illustrator: Jenelle Lewis 

Filmed on Location: Dokis First Nation
Archival Footage - G.E. Mortimore, Guelph University

2023 - 25 | Independent Initiative

Set in a speculative future on Turtle Island, where ancestral dreams and visions shape reality, the film follows the poetic journey of the Welcomer, a vessel of First Nations resilience, and the Arrivant, a traveller from the African diaspora. The Welcomer, reflecting on the echoes of a past reshaped by colonization, envisions a future liberated from its violence. The Arrivant, seeking a place to anchor their journey through time and space, is drawn to the Welcomer’s vision.

When their paths finally cross, they redefine the moment of First Contact—not as a collision of the Uninvited but as a convergence of kindred spirits. Guided by the rhythm of poetry, the Welcomer and the Arrivant share their knowledge and teachings, fusing their identities, histories, and imagined futures into a vibrant tapestry of connection and healing. Through their poetic exchange, they create a sanctuary of solidarity that transcends mere survival, reclaiming the power to define what it means to encounter and be encountered.

Inspired by Afrofuturism and Indigenous Futurism, they envision a world that might have been—and still can be—where Black and Indigenous lives are intertwined in kinship, resistance, and the shared wisdom of their ancestors.

This film was supported by the Ontario Arts Council (OAC).

This film is currently in post-production.

Stay tuned for project updates.