While writing his new indigenous sci-fi thriller Raiders of the nightDanis Goulet says he approached a broadcaster for funding and walked away with a “small example” of the barriers indigenous filmmakers face.
It was in June 2015, the same month that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report, that the broadcaster sent feedback notes to Goulet. They suggested that their futuristic story of a woman believed trying to get her daughter out of a forced education camp was “exciting” and “empowering” with great characters.
But they added: “It doesn’t really work as an allegory for residential schools, because priests no longer beat children and as a country, we have moved on from this,” Goulet recalled in a video interview.
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She was “stunned” by what they were saying in response to her script.
“It really showed the prevailing attitude that existed and that the gatekeepers were using these notes as reasons to go ahead or not with the project.”
The experience further emphasized why screenwriter / director Cree / Metis was raised in La Ronge, Sask. Raiders of the night, which opens Friday in 80 theatrical locations across Canada.
Elevation Pictures says Raiders of the night will have the widest theatrical opening in history for an indigenous Canadian filmmaker, a record previously held by Zacharias Kunuk Atanarjuat: the fast runner, who played in 36 locations. Goulet and the Canada Media Fund’s Made / Nous program also plan to screen the film in indigenous communities in the north.
Elle-Maija Tailfeathers plays Niska, who teams up with the Cree vigilantes to rescue her daughter and other children from a state military academy.
Brooklyn Letexier-Hart plays her daughter in the postwar dystopian story, set in North America in 2043 and reflecting both past and present, from the horrors of residential schools to the walls that divide nations and the spread of a deadly virus.
Goulet began writing the story in 2013 after his post-apocalyptic short film. Wake It inspired her to use the science fiction genre in a role that further explored the impact of colonial policies on indigenous peoples.
Political movements of the time also inspired Goulet’s writings, including the Idle No More movement to protect land and water, and the pipeline protests near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation between North and South Dakota.
He set the story in 2043, imagining what could happen after several more elections in North America.
“I got into a civil war in the early 2030s, based on what I thought would be a backlash from far-right white supremacy in North America,” he said.
“So I imagined when that would happen, what would happen, how it would lead to war and then what would happen in the post-war period.”
As the story unfolded, some of the disturbing ideas he envisioned on the page began to manifest into reality, notably the backlash from white supremacists.
“I think it has reminded us how important it is to be vigilant when it comes to the types of futures we want to create for all of us,” he said.
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Goulet filmed the 2019 Canada / New Zealand co-production in Ontario, with her friend and acclaimed Maori. Jojo Rabbit filmmaker Taika Waititi among the executive producers.
The film had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in March and made its Canadian debut to rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.
The cast also includes Alex Tarrant, Shaun Sipos, Amanda Plummer, and Goulet’s father, Keith Goulet, a retired politician who was the prime minister of Saskatchewan’s indigenous cabinet.
Goulet said her parents have long fought for change through perseverance and determination.
“My father was a politician and he decided to promote change in this area in every way possible. My mother is not indigenous, but she chose to serve at First Nations University for 35 years in the education department, ”she said.
“They were both very active members of our community.”
Goulet said her Métis father grew up speaking Cree as a first language and hunting and trapping in a traditional way of life in Cumberland House, Sask. Watching him step into political spaces and “face racism head-on, without hesitation” has been incredibly inspiring for Goulet, he said.
“I feel like it has created a strength, both for me and for my sister in our family, that has allowed us to do what we do,” he said.
“I involve him in the development of my films. I sit at the table with him and talk to him about Cree conceptual thinking, because it’s very important to me as a Cree non-speaker. “
Like Niska’s character, Goulet said that she speaks some Cree, but not a lot, but recently she started going to a Cree language camp to learn the language.
Indigenous languages are “poetic and beautiful, and this is where we find our heritage,” he said, noting that attempts to erase it have resulted in huge personal losses in families, including his own.
“The impact of colonization touches all aspects of indigenous life,” said Goulet. “Why don’t I speak, believe, like my dad’s daughter? That is colonization doing what it was supposed to do, which is to erase us from our own land ”.
© 2021 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca