Divided by Zero

Directed by Danis Goulet

Canada, 2006 (fiction, 16 minutes, colour, English)

Film Description:
"Ashley, a young Aboriginal crusader of all causes is stopped in her activist tracks after an awkward conversation with her boyfriend's well-meaning mother. In a determined attempt to re-assert her 'cultural authenticity,' Ashley builds a tipi in her suburban bedroom using internet instructions."
-- V tape (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by:	Danis Goulet
Produced by:	Danis Goulet, Sonia Hosko, Gisele Gordon, Daniel Iron
Principal Cast:	Tinsel Korey, Pamela Matthews, Taysha Fuller, Kit Weyman, Catherine Hayos
Cinematography:	Colin Akoon
Film Editing:	Ellen Fine
Music:	Matt Skal

(sources)

Quote about Divided by Zero

"Questions over her Native identity provokes Ashley's crisis; or perhaps more accurately, her concern over not being Native enough. Ashley lives with her mother and sister in a culturally mixed, middle class Canadian neighborhood. Ashley's earnest activist boyfriend and his affectedly liberal mother are white. Broadly speaking, Ashley's identity crisis is typical of adolescence, something the film [Divided by Zero] presents with humor and dignity. If it is a goal of this work to question some of the assumptions about Native identity, it is an elegant choice to set it in the context of adolescence, itself a time of 'becoming' and of searching for identity."
-- Elizabeth Claire Kalbfleisch (source)

Bibliography for Divided by Zero

Brief Sections of Dissertations

Kalbfleisch, Elizabeth Claire. "The Home and the Unhomely: Women, House, and Home in Contemporary Native Art." In "Bordering on Feminism: Home and Transnational Sites in Recent Visual Culture and Native Women's Art." PhD diss., University of Rochester, 2009. (pp. 195-199)

Web Sites about Divided by Zero

"IMDb: Divided by Zero." Internet Movie Database, Inc. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816480/reference.