Shania turns tragedy into triumph
By Barb Nahwegahbow
TORONTO –Shania Tabobondung packs a powerful punch in her short film, My Story. Just nine minutes long, My Story screened Oct. 18 at the 14th Annual imagineNATIVE Film Festival at the Bell Lightbox Theatre.
The Grade 12 student from Wasauksing First Nation tells the story of her journey into darkness and thankfully, back into the light. Using whiteboard animation accompanied by her narrative, the power of the film is in its simplicity and raw honesty. Members of the audience, including world-famous Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, surrounded the 17-year-old after the screening to congratulate her, many of them visibly moved by her story. Tabobondung was bubbly and gracious as she received their compliments, including Obamsawin’s assessment of her as a “gifted artist”.
The suicide of an uncle who lived with her grandparents triggered Tabobondung’s downward spiral when she was only 11.
“I just remember him being like a permanent fixture in my life,” she says. “Then one day, he was gone and I was like, what happened?” Her uncle, she says, had been depressed for a long time, “…but I didn’t know. I was really young and I didn’t understand.” A year later, her grandfather passed away from a heart attack.
“Those two things, one after the other,” says Tabobondung, “all that loss; I didn’t know how to cope with it. I didn’t wanna talk about it. I didn’t know any healthy alternatives…” As a means of coping and control, she began cutting herself, and then she stopped eating.
She reached a point in her life, she says, where she realized what she was doing. She was fainting all the time because she wasn’t eating and her friends were concerned. But, “definitely, the fact that my parents found out and just seeing the hurt on their faces,” made her take action. “I decided that I needed to stop doing these things and get better.”
The opportunity to get better came in the form of a film tour by imagineNATIVE. Tabobondung went to a film workshop they held at her school and she thought, “…this is perfect, like, I can finally tell my story.” The act of film-making indulged her creativity and started the process of her own healing.
Her confidence got a significant boost when she ended up winning the 2013 imagineNATIVE Tour Video Contest which had over 40 films in contention.
When Tabobondung stood on stage for the Q & A following the screening of her film and three others made by older filmmakers, she stood tall and confident and handled questions well. In the audience were several people from her community to cheer her on, including her parents, Wasauksing Councillor Theresa McInnes and a busload of youth.
Tabobondung acknowledged the importance of her community’s support, calling it “awesome.”
“I’m just so proud of her,” said Councillor McInnes. “ It takes courage, a lot of strength and I’m really glad she’s telling her story. We need to hear more stories like Shania’s, because there’s a lot of youth who don’t know where to turn. Our people will learn from her story, and not just First Nations, but others.”
For Tabobondung, there’s more filmmaking in her future. Her emergence from the darkness has given her the ability to dream again. “I’m hoping to get into Media Arts in university,” she says, “but right now, I’m just writing stories. I really like storytelling.”
My Story is available for viewing on youtube by searching Shania Tabobondung.