Ogopogo is not the creature of the lake; nx̌aʔx̌aʔitkʷ is the sacred being of the water. This misrepresentation of Okanagan/syilx culture is the subject at the heart of Bolton’s film, a meta-investigation of Barbara Pentland and Dorothy Livesay’s long-lost opera "The Lake." The film acts as a cross-cultural reinterpretation of the original material, blending performance and self-reflection at the hands of two talented friends: settler and opera singer Heather Pawsey, and Indigenous teacher Delphine Derickson of Westbank First Nation. Acknowledging the successes and failures inherent in cross-cultural collaboration, the film examines concepts of privilege and representation in real time, with Pawsey and Derickson exploring the settler/Indigenous relationship and the boundaries of art, while also building something new and uniquely beautiful. -JB

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