On an isolated reserve a young boy with no family structure struggles to search for a connection to his deceased grandmother through an old VHS camcorder. This visually stunning short film from Tsilhqot’in filmmaker Trevor Mack (Clouds of Autumn) examines family, death and child suicide.

ʔEtsu translates into grandmother, in Tsilhqot’in, and the film paints a first-person narrative of a young Indigenous boy dealing with the death of his beloved grandmother.

Through the use of “data moshing” where pixelated images seem to show his grandmother passing through the film towards the boy, Mack’s film is intimate and heart wrenching.

Warning: Film contains strong language and suicide content.