Ceremony

Intimate and immersive, director Banchi Hanuse’s latest documentary opens with the disappearance of the ooligan (candlefish) from Bella Coola’s riverbanks in British Columbia, Canada – before unfolding into a wider story of Nuxalk land, life, and memory. From the hum of a ramshackle community radio, voices carry testimony, dreams, and archival echoes, tracing ecological collapse alongside colonial encroachment. Breathtaking watercolour animation brings ancestral stories and fish spirits to life, linking land, water, and people. As a new generation returns to the river and rekindles ceremony, the film becomes a celebration of connection, restoration, and the life flowing through people, place, and memory.