Kuessipan takes place in the Sept-Îles area, over 600 km to the north-east of Québec city and essentially in the Uashat-Maliotenam Innu community. The film is adapted from the eponymous book by Naomi Fontaine (2015) and is Myriam Verreault's first feature.
Mikuan (Sharon Fontaine-Ishpatao) and Shaniss (Yamie Grégoire) grow up as friends in this Innu community and swear that they'll never cease to be friends, although they have different visions and it seems as though they will grow apart in spite of the pact they've made. Both also come from different backgrounds within the community: Mikuan's is very loving, whereas Shaniss comes from a broken home.
Furthermore, Shaniss has left school early, has a child and lives with a violent boyfriend. Mikuan, though, is academically gifted and is interested in creative writing. To fulfull her ambitions Mikuan wants to go to unniversity in Québec city, away from the Innu reservation where she has grown up.
Additional complications arise when Mikuan has a lover: Francis (Étienne Galloy) from Sept-Îles, who is white and so represents everything Mikuan's community is against and has had to tolerate for years: greed, the theft of their land. Not without problems, and not without jokes at his expense, Francis is tolerated, although towards the end he feels that the two peoples he and Mikuan represent cannot co-exist, and ends the relationship.
In a tear-jerking scene Mikuan swears loyalty to Shaniss as she moves out of the reserve to university, to success as a writer. We need stories like this to remind us of other worlds out there.
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