The Fresh Coast Film Festival exists to share stories.
We share stories about the land, the water, and the people.
We share stories of the underdog, the underserved, and the voiceless.
We share stories of the dreamers, the makers, and the artists.

We share stories about the incredible forces that have formed this place.
And, we share these stories around the flickering glow of a 21st century fire.
As we gather today it is with full awareness that we are not the first people to live here and share stories.

We are not the first to walk the trails, paddle the waters, love the land.
We are not the first to express culture and create art.
We are not the first to find inspiration in what surrounds us.

There are many who have walked here before us, and it is their story we want to acknowledge.

Their story is one which spans every generation that has lived here.
They are the past, present and future residents of the place we call the Great Lakes, this amazing fresh coast.
Their ancestors’ stories are the Original stories, they are the Original People, the First Nation.

They are the Anishinaabek.

The Fresh Coast Film Festival recognizes the tribal nations of this territory – the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the Bay Mills Indian Community, the Hannahville Indian Community and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

We acknowledge that we stand upon the ancestral homelands of the Anishinaabek.
In doing so, we seek to heal traumas inflicted by an on-going history of colonization and correct intergenerational injustice.