LOS ANGELES Premiere
105 m / Feature / Canada
In partnership with Ava DuVernay, ARRAY and American Film Institute
Friday, November 8, 2019
Laemmle Music Hall | Screening 7:30pm | Red is Green Carpet Event (arrivals 6:30pm)
Two Indigenous women from vastly different backgrounds find their worlds colliding as one of them, Rosie, is fleeing a violent domestic attack.
As this intimate yet challenging encounter develops, what began as violent and terrifying, tentatively expands as the women’s shared imagery and cultural experience weave a fragile bond between them. Both women now must face their own unique struggle as they navigate the complexities of motherhood, class, race, and the ongoing legacy of colonialism.
Shot on beautiful 16mm film, co-director Kathleen Hepburn (NEVER STEADY, NEVER STILL CIFF Selection 2017) and co-director/actor Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers tell this story, based on true events, in real time. They have delicately crafted a raw, quiet and honest film about human connection, abuse and the precarious situation of Indigenous women. Rated 14A – Coarse Language.
Cast: Violet Nelson, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Screenwriters: Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Producers: Tyler Hagan, Lori Lozinski, Alan R. Milligan
Cinematographer: Norm Li, csc
Includes a post screening Q&A with the director(s)
NOTE: Previous RNCI Red Nation Award Nominee Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Director (s)
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, also known as Maija Tailfeathers, is a writer, director, producer and actor. She is both Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation as well as Sámi from Norway. She is a graduate of Vancouver Film School’s Acting Program and also has a bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia with a Major in First Nations Studies and a Minor in Women’s and Gender Studies.
Elle-Máijá was named the 2018 Sundance Film Institute’s Merata Mita Film Fellow and is an alumni of the Berlinale Talent Lab, the International Sámi Film Institute’s Indigenous Film Fellowship, and the Hot Docs Doc Accelerator Lab. She is also a member of the Embargo Collective II. She was presented with the 2014 Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award as an emerging artist in film and new media and a Vancouver Women in Film Kodak Image Award for her work on A Red Girl’s Reasoning. Her short documentary Bihttos was included in the TIFF Top Ten Canadian Shorts and also won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the Seattle International Film Festival. She is directing a feature-length documentary (with the support of the National Film Board of Canada and the Hot Docs Cross Currents Fund) on her community’s brave response to the ongoing opiate-crisis. She co-wrote and co-directed the narrative feature, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, with Kathleen Hepburn which premiered at the 2019 Berlinale in the Generation Program.
She won the Best Lead Actress in a Dramatic Program or Limited Series Canadian Screen Award as well as the VWIFF UBCP/ACTRA award for her role in On the Farm (aka Unclaimed). She was also nominated for Leo Awards for her performances in Not Indian Enough and On the Farm (Unclaimed), and nominated for American Indian Motion Picture Awards for her roles in White Indians Walking and On the Farm (aka Unclaimed). Her acting credits include roles in the upcoming features Blood Quantum, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, and On the Farm, Not Indian Enough, White Indians Walking, The Guard, The Reaper, Shattered, and Another Cinderella Story. She has also appeared on stage in Presentation House Theater’s Where the River Meets the Sea and Beaivvás Sámi National Theater’s Silbajávri.
Kathleen Hepburn is a Canadian screenwriter and film director. She is most noted for her film Never Steady, Never Still, which premiered as a short film in 2015 before being expanded into her feature film debut in 2017. The film received eight Canadian Screen Award nominations at the 6th Canadian Screen Awards in 2018, including Best Picture and a Best Original Screenplay nomination for Hepburn.
Hepburn won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director of a Canadian Film at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards 2017.
Her second full-length feature film, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, was co-directed with Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and premiered at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival. The film won the $25,000 Best BC Film Award at the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival.
