"Truly special."
“One of the best Canadian documentaries of the year.”
"A story of return and hope.”
2026 · 84 mins · Documentary · English · Nuxalk
Director + Producer
Banchi Hanuse
When the Nuxalk trace their vanished ooligan alongside a land claim filed the day smallpox arrived, their radio station becomes courtroom, confessional and conjuring ground, where an older law insists: the fish and the people return together or not at all.
SMAYAYKILA FILMS presents “CEREMONY”
composer JESSE ZUBOT cinematographer LUKE CONNOR and JEAN-PHILIPPE MARQUIS animator JAY WHITE
director & producer BANCHI HANUSE editors ERIN CUMMING and SARAH TAYLOR sound designer JOE WATTS
Sun, Oct 04, 5:45pm @ SFU Woodwards
Tues, Oct 06 1:00pm @ International Village
Sat, Oct 10 12:00pm @ Lindsay Family Stage, Granville Island
Sun, Oct 11 12:00pm @ VIFF Centre, Lochmaddy Studio Theatre
Encore screening
Sat, Oct 10th, 5:00 PM,
Strand Theatre
345 Main St
Mon, Oct 12, 7:45 PM @ Alamo Drafthouse Cinema at The Square
Tue, Oct 13, 5:45 PM @ Living Room Theaters
Sat, Oct 17, 12:00 PM @ Living Room Theaters
Fri, Oct 16th, 10:00 AM
Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa
239 Central Ave, Crystal Ballroom
Fri Oct 16, 10am
Moffatt-Ladd House
154 Market St
Sun, Oct 18, 10am
Sky Cinemas Midtown
1020 Midtown Calle Central
Fri, Oct 23, 3pm
Marcus West End Cinema, 1625 West End Blvd
Sat Oct 24, 12pm
Scotiabank Theatre
Streaming
Streaming (Blackfoot language version)
Streaming
Telus Optik channel 8
Documentary Spotlight Audience Award
DGC Special Jury Prize Canadian Feature
First Nations Award
Indigenous Spirit Award
Tides Award
Her visuals are beautiful, almost meditative in gently focusing on the stunning natural beauty of the river, mountain ranges and forests of the valley.
This doesn’t feel like a documentary built to inform; it feels like one built to correct something that should have never been lost in the first place.
Banchi Hanuse’s feature documentary, which won the Audience Award in the Documentary Spotlight section at SXSW 2026, took more than a decade to make, and that patience is felt in every frame.
Winner of the festival’s DGC Special Jury Prize for Canadian Feature Documentary, Ceremony is an evocative, engaging, and refreshingly talking-head and infographic-free film
Ts’xwiixw Megan F. Moody is a Nuxalk biologist who helped design the Sputc Study and analyze its data. Author of the 2008 UBC thesis “Eulachon: Past and Present.”
Nuxalk Fisheries and Wildlife Program Manager who leads the Sputc Study crew.
Qwaxw Siwallace is a Nuxalk Radio host and cultural knowledge keeper who clears his family’s grease camp each year.
Snuxyaltwa “DJ Y” Deric Snow is a Nuxalk Staltmc (hereditary leader), former commercial fisherman, frequent Nuxalk Radio guest and participant in the Stand at Ista.
Nuskmata Jacinda Mack is building a home in the old Nuxalk village of Nusq’lst.
Nuxalk Staltmc (hereditary leader) and Land Based Healing Cultural Worker.
Nuxalk cultural leader, historian and fluent language speaker of Nuxalk.
Nuxalk harvesting coordinator, building in the old Nuxalk village of Nusq’lst.
Historian, researcher, and author focused on the histories of the Nuxalk, Tsilhqot’in, and Haida peoples, including the 1862 smallpox epidemic.
PO Box 793 Bella Coola, Nuxalkulmc c/o Canada Post V0T 1C0
mailbox@smayaykila.com
