Twelve minutes that'll wreck your entire afternoon — colonial guilt, but make it cinematic.
A meditative and mysterious dramatic film, Bison ultimately explores the violent legacy of colonialism in a contemporary context. The film is anchored by thematic concerns around implicit cultural culpability, systemic issues of failure surrounding the contemporary and historical relationship with First Nations peoples and notions of responsibility in an individual and societal context.
Direction
Funk's control of negative space speaks louder than dialogue ever could.
Cinematography
Those wide shots of emptiness? Devastating.
Director
Kevan Funk
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Funk developed this as part of a larger examination of Canadian identity, specifically how hockey culture masks systemic violence against Indigenous communities. The short's later expansion into Hello Destroyer (2016) deepens these themes.
The title's creature never appears on screen — its absence is the point. Like colonial responsibility, it's everywhere and nowhere, referenced in architecture, team names, erased histories.
CA
