Indigenous Voices
List activity
205 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
110 people
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Alanis Obomsawin was born on 31 August 1932 in Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA. She is a director and producer, known for Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993), Waban-aki: People from Where the Sun Rises (2006) and Is the Crown at War with Us? (2002).- Adrian C. Louis was born on 24 April 1946 in Lovelock, Nevada, USA. He was a writer, known for Skins (2002). He died on 9 September 2018 in Marshall, Minnesota, USA.
- Writer
- Producer
Jennifer D. Lyne is known for Skins (2002).- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Chris Eyre was born in 1969 in Portland, Oregon, USA. He is known for Smoke Signals (1998), Dark Winds (2022) and Skins (2002).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer and actor. She is a member of the Kainai First Nation (Blood Tribe, Blackfoot Confederacy) as well as Sámi from Norway.
Her short documentary Bihttos was included in the 2015 TIFF Top Ten Shorts and was commissioned for the imagineNATIVE Embargo Collective. Bihttos won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the Seattle International Film Festival.
With The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, she made her feature co-directorial debut (alongside Kathleen Hepburn), as well as starring-in and co-writing. Taking its title from an essay by Cree poet Billy-Ray Belcourt, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, is based on a true-chance encounter between Tailfeathers and another Indigenous woman. Premiering at the Berlinale in 2019, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open received the Toronto Film Critics Association and Vancouver Film Critics Circle' awards for Best Canadian Feature Film. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open was also nominated for six Canadian Screen Awards, and Tailfeathers and Hepburn received the CSAs for best direction and best original screenplay.
Hailed as one of "... the most important film[s] about addiction to date ..." by the Vancouver International Film Festival, her latest feature documentary Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is an intimate portrait of survival, love and the collective work of healing in the Kainai First Nation in Southern Alberta, a Blackfoot community facing the impacts of substance use and a drug-poisoning epidemic, where community members active in addiction and recovery, first responders and medical professionals implement harm reduction to save lives. Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy premiered at the 2021 Hot Docs International Documentary Festival and received a Roger's Audience Choice Award as well as the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award for Tailfeathers. Since it's premiere, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy and Tailfeathers have received the Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director at DOXA 2021, the Audience Choice Award for a Canadian Documentary at the 2021 Calgary International Film Festival, the Co-winner, Inspiring Voices & Perspectives Feature Film Award at Cinéfest Sudbury, and the 2022 Canadian Screen Award for the Ted Rogers Best Canadian Feature Documentary.
Her acting credits include roles in; Jeff Barnaby's Blood Quantum, Canadian Screen Award winning performance in Danis Goulet's Night Raiders, Canadian Screen Award nominated performance in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Canadian Screen Award winning performance in Rachel Talalay's Unclaimed, the soon to be released Stellar by Darlene Naponse, and the upcoming Amazon/Left Bank Pictures series Three Pines.
In 2018 Elle-Máijá was the Sundance Film Institute's Merata Mita Film Fellow and is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Lab and the Hot Docs Accelerator Lab. Elle-Máijá is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, the Director's Guild of Canada, UBCP/ACTRA, and the Documentary Organization of Canada.- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Gary Dale Farmer is a character actor with plenty of character. With over 100 Film and TV appearances attached to his resume, and plenty more in the pipeline, Gary has shown he can adapt easily to any genre when necessary. He was born in Ohsweken, Ontario, into the Cayuga nation and Wolf Clan, and studied photography and Film at both the Syracuse University and Ryerson Polytechnic University. He then began a successful career as an actor, first taking small roles in movies such as Police Academy (1984), the John Schlesinger film The Believers (1987) with Martin Sheen, the Matt Dillon vehicle, The Big Town (1987), and Renegades (1989) starring Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips.
By the early 1990s, Gary was starring in more substantial roles. He portrayed Cowboy Dashee in the Robert Redford- produced thriller, The Dark Wind (1991) - again opposite Lou Diamond Phillips- and starred with Corey Feldman and
Jim Jarmusch re-prised Gary's role as the Native American spiritual guide - Nobody - for his next film, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), and Frank Oz cast him alongside Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro in The Score (2001). Gary continues to work steadily as an actor and has also moved behind the camera - he has directed a few projects, including an episode of the Forever Knight (1992) TV series, episode 'Father Figure' (1992).
Gary formed his own band: 'Gary Farmer and the Troublemakers'. They play the blues and have released two CDs.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Sterlin Harjo is known for Reservation Dogs (2021), Barking Water (2009) and Osiyo, Voices of the Cherokee People (2015).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Blackhorse Lowe is a filmmaker from the Navajo Nation. He is a writer, director, producer and editor known for 5th World, Shimasani, Chasing the light and Fukry. His films have played at Sundance, Tribeca and Imaginenative film festival. A recipient of a Re:New Media Award, Lowe is an alumni of the Sundance Institute's NativeLab, Producers Lab and Screenwriters Writers Lab. He is a 2019-2020 Tulsa Artist Fellow.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Tazbah Chavez is known for Reservation Dogs (2021), Rutherford Falls (2021) and Your Name Isn't English (2018).- Director
- Writer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Sydney Freeland was born on 29 October 1980 in Gallup, New Mexico, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Drunktown's Finest (2014), Rez Ball and Echo (2023).- Casting Department
- Sound Department
- Producer
Danis Goulet is an award-winning writer and director. Her films have screened at festivals around the world including Sundance, the Berlin International Film Festival, MoMA and the Toronto International Film Festival. She is a former programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival and a former director of the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. In 2018, she joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and in 2021, she joined the Board for the Toronto International Film Festival.
Her debut feature Night Raiders premiered in the Panorama section of the 2021 Berlinale and was selected as a Gala Presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival 2021 where Danis was recognized with a TIFF Tribute Award. She was also awarded the Directors Guild of Canada's Discovery Award in 2021 and the film won the Grand Prix at the Festival du nouveau cinéma de Montréal. Danis also completed production on a Netflix thriller in 2021. She is Cree/Metis, originally from La Ronge, Saskatchewan.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Erica Tremblay's an American writer & director from the Seneca-Cayuga Nation. She recently worked as an executive story editor on Reservation Dogs at FX, where she directed her 1st TVepisode. Together w/ Sterlin Harjo, she developed a series adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Yellowbird (2014) for Paramount+. She was an executive story editor on Dark Winds (2022), produced by George R.R. Martin & Robert Redford. Her feature project Fancy Dance (2023) was accepted into the 2021 Sundance Directors & Screenwriters Labs. In 2021, she was awarded the Walter Bernstein Screenwriting Fellowship, the Maja Kristin Directing Fellowship, the SFFILM Rainin Grant & the Lynn Shelton of a Certain Age Grant. Her short film Little Chief (2020) premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival & was included on IndieWire's top-10 list of must-see short films at the festival. In addition to writing & directing, she's also studying her indigenous language.- Actress
- Casting Department
- Writer
Born in Montana, Gladstone was raised on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and later near Seattle, WA. She graduated with high honors from the University of Montana in 2008 with a BFA in Acting/Directing, and a minor in Native American Studies.
Gladstone was introduced to audiences in Alex and Andrew Smith's adaptation of Winter in the Blood, a NYT best seller and seminal novel by Blackfeet/Gros Ventre author James Welch. Her breakout role came in 2016 from Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women, a performance which earned her the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress, Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as nominations for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female and Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor.
In 2017 Gladstone joined the Oregon Shakespeare Festival acting company, and in 2020 she stared in the Yale Repertory Theater production of Mary Kathryn Nagle's Manahatta.
In 2019 Gladstone reunited with Reichardt for First Cow. The film won Best Film at the 2020 New York Film Critics Circle Awards, and was named one of the ten best films of 2020 by the National Board of Review.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
- Actress
- Director
Grace Dove is an Indigenous Actress and Director who has embraced a responsibility to lift up her audience and her community. In 2015 she co-starred with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy in the Oscar-winning film The Revenant. Other recent film credits include the Netflix thriller How It Ends (2018), where she starred alongside Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker and Theo James. In 2020 she appeared in her first leading role in the feature film adaptation of Eden Robinson's novel Monkey Beach. Her past television credits include a series lead beside Hilary Swank on ABC Alaska Daily, Syfy series Resident Alien and the Netflix series The Order. In 2020 Dove made her directorial debut with the poignantly beautiful and visually stunning short film Kiri and The Girl, which is currently streaming on Apple TV. The well-received short screened at St. John's International Women's Festival, American Indian Film Festival SF, San Diego International Film Festival and Victoria Film Festival after debuting at the Vancouver International Film Fest. Dove recently wrapped filming the five-part limited series Bones of Crows, where she stars as Cree Matriarch "Aline Spears". Bones of Crows tells the story of Spears' childhood as she survives Canada's residential school system to continue her family's generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate codes into working for a special division of the Canadian Air Force as a Cree code talker in World War II. The story unfolds over 100 years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.- Sound Department
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby is known for Mino Bimaadiziwin (2017), Funeral Package (2021) and Bridge (2019).- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Shelley Niro is known for The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw (2019), Café Daughter (2023) and Kissed by Lightning (2009).- Actor
- Writer
Miciana Alise is known for Fancy Dance (2023).- Writer
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Nyla Innuksuk is known for Slash/Back (2022), Kajutaijuq (2015) and Stories from Our Land 1.5: Inngiruti: The Thing That Sings! (2012).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
- Producer
- Actress
- Director
Actor, Writer, Producer, Director Jennifer Podemski is a director, writer, producer and actor. Born and raised in Toronto, Jennifer makes her home in Barrie, Ontario.
Of mixed Anishinaabe (First Nation) and Ashkenazi (Jewish) decent, Jennifer's professional acting career began when she was 17. Her breakout role was Sadie, in Bruce McDonald's iconic film, Dance Me Outside, a performance that garnered critical acclaim, solidifying her place in Canada's film and television canon.
In 1999 Jennifer shifted her focus to producing as a way to address the lack of Indigenous representation in the film and television industry. She launched Big Soul Productions with Laura Milliken becoming Canada's first Indigenous owned and operated, full-service film and television production and post production company. Big Soul Productions produced a variety of documentary television series, scripted short films and the award winning, multi-season, all Indigenous dramatic television series Moccasin Flats for Showcase Television and APTN.
In 2005, Jennifer branched out independently and has been creating, producing, writing and directing content through her production company Redcloud Studios Inc. Her most recent credits include 5 seasons of the paranormal television series The Other Side (APTN), the award winning feature film Empire of Dirt and two seasons of documentary series Future History (APTN) for which she received the 2020 Canadian Screen Award for Best Director Factual.
Jennifer has maintained a successful career as an actor, with roles in Degrassi TNG, Republic of Doyle, Take This Waltz, Blackstone, Hard Rock Medical and Cardinal. She is most proud of her starring role in her own film Empire of Dirt which was nominated for 5 Canadian Screen Awards in 2015 including Best Actress (Cara Gee), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Podemski), Best Editing (Jorge Weisz), Best Film (Jennifer Podemski) and a win for Best Screenplay making Shannon Masters the first Indigenous woman to receive this honor.
In 2020, Jennifer launched The Shine Network, a digital platform designed to amplify the voices of Indigenous women content creators and offer professional development opportunities to Indigenous women.
Redcloud Studios Inc. With veteran producer, Jennifer Podemski, at the helm, Redcloud Studios has produced award-winning and critically acclaimed productions across all platforms and genres for over 15 years.
Redcloud Studios is committed to creating and producing Indigenous content through an Indigenous lens while building capacity and creating opportunities within the screen sector for aspiring Indigenous storytellers. From concept to completion, Jennifer leads the creative on a wide variety of content from dramatic series to documentary, factual and live broadcast.- Actress
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Tamara Podemski is a multi-disciplinary artist born and raised in Toronto to an Ojibway mother from Treaty 4 Territory in Saskatchewan and an Ashkenazi father from Israel. She is a graduate of the Claude Watson School for the Performing Arts where she studied theatre, dance and music throughout its 10-year program.
Though she is best known as a screen actress, Tamara's stage career has spanned over 25 years as an actress, singer, dancer and choreographer, most notably starring on Broadway in the musical RENT. She also has independent recording career, having wrote and released 3 albums [2 in Anishinaabemowin and 1 in English under her own record label, Mukwa Music].
Tamara made her biggest mark in Sterlin Harjo's film "Four Sheets to the Wind" when she won the Special Jury Prize for Acting at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, followed by an IFC Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2008. After returning to the stage, she earned a Jessie Theatre Award nomination for her role in Marie Clements' play "The Edward Curtis Project" and, under the direction of Jani Lauzon, Tamara starred in Colleen Wagner's Governor General's Award-Winning Play "The Monument," which was hailed as one of the "10 Best Theatre Productions of 2018" by the Globe & Mail. Recently, she joined the all-Indigenous cast of Keith Barker's "This is How We Got Here" which won a 2020 Dora Award for Outstanding New Play. Behind the camera, Tamara is the writer and story producer of the documentary TV series Future History (directed and produced by her sister, Jennifer Podemski) and was nominated for Best Writing in a Factual Series at the 2020 Canadian Screen Awards. Tamara recently won an 2021 ACTRA Award for "Outstanding Female Performance" and a 2021 Canadian Screen Award for "Best Supporting Actress - Drama" for her role as Alison Trent in CBC's "Coroner."
As a community worker, she has travelled the globe sharing her cultural and creative experiences through workshops, keynotes and panel discussions. Having grandparents who are both Holocaust survivors and Residential School survivors, she speaks openly about issues of intergenerational trauma, reconciliation, inherited legacies and the importance of creating safe spaces for dialogue, education and collaboration.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Glen Gould is an acclaimed actor with a remarkable career in theater, television, and film. With his exceptional talent and versatility, he has garnered numerous awards and critical acclaim for his performances. From his recent roles in Marie Clements' "Bones of Crows" to his recurring role opposite Sylvester Stallone in Taylor Sheridan's "Tulsa King", and his guest starring role in Season 6 of "Outlander", Glen has consistently impressed audiences and critics alike.
Born and raised on the Membertou First Nation in Nova Scotia, Glen discovered his passion for acting at a young age. He honed his skills in theater, television, and film, laying the foundation for his successful career. With a rich background in theater, Glen Gould developed a commanding stage presence and an ability to bring characters to life.
Glen Gould's filmography is a testament to his talent and range as an actor. He has appeared in a wide variety of films, showcasing his ability to excel in different genres. One notable film is the indie feature "Girl," where he starred opposite Bella Thorne, captivating audiences with his compelling performance. Another remarkable film in his repertoire is the Hollywood blockbuster "Cold Pursuit," which further solidified his presence in the industry.
Glen Gould's outstanding portrayal in the LGBT action-thriller "North Mountain" earned him the prestigious Best Actor award at the 2015 RNCI Awards, showcasing his ability to tackle challenging and diverse roles. His exceptional performance in "Rhymes for Young Ghouls" also garnered critical acclaim, earning him a Best Actor win at the 2014 AIMPA's and a Best Actor Nomination at the 2014 and 2020 RNFCI Festival. Additionally, Glen Gould's role as Avery Paul in the award-winning feature film "Charlie Zone" earned him the esteemed David Renton Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor at the AIFF and the Best Actor at the Dreamspeakers Film Festival.
Glen's talent extends beyond the silver screen, as he has also made a significant impact in the television industry. One of his most notable roles is Detective Jerry Commanda in the hit CTV series "Cardinal." His portrayal of this complex character captivated audiences, further establishing his versatility and acting prowess. Another memorable television role is that of rancher John Eagle in "Cashing In," showcasing his ability to bring depth and authenticity to his characters.
In addition to these standout performances, Glen has made appearances in various other television shows. From "FBI Most Wanted" to "Tribal," "Mohawk Girls" to "The Strain," his talent has been recognized and celebrated across a wide range of TV series. He has also graced the screens in popular shows like "Blackstone," "Murdoch Mysteries," "DaVinci's City Hall," "DaVinci's Inquest," and "The 4400," among others.
While Glen has achieved remarkable success in film and television, his passion for theater remains unwavering. With his extensive background in theater, he has showcased his talent on stage, captivating audiences with his commanding presence
and exceptional performances. His rich voice has also made him a sought-after talent for voice-overs and narrations in various TV shows, documentaries, and animations.
Glen Gould's career is a testament to his exceptional talent, dedication, and versatility as an actor. From his captivating performances in film, television, and theater to his renowned voice-over work, he continues to leave an indelible mark on the industry. With his numerous accolades and critical acclaim, Glen Gould stands as one of the most accomplished and respected actors of his generation.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Sarah Podemski is an award winning Anishinaabe/Ashkenazi multidisciplinary artist from Toronto. She is passionate about recreating the Indigenous narrative that has been misrepresented since the beginning of cinema. She can be seen pulling double duty on television. She stars in the critically acclaimed award-winning series "Reservation Dogs" on FX. Co-created and executive produced by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, Sarah plays Bear's mother 'Rita,' who is on a journey to discover herself and her role as a mom. In the Syfy comedy "Resident Alien" Sarah portrays 'Kayla,' cousin to 'Asta' (Sara Tomko). Kayla is a Lawyer, and Asta's best friend/support system who is in a period of self-reflection while balancing the responsibilities of motherhood.
Sarah began in the performing arts at the tender age of six years old. She booked her first role in the German TV series "Blue Hawk" at 11 and went on to appear in the iconic series "Goosebumps". Sarah's long career also includes roles in CBS' "Bull," Amazon's "Tin Star" and CBC's "The Coroner." Her feature film work includes winning 'Best Supporting Actress' at the American Indian Film Festival for the TIFF Official Selection "Mekko", written and directed by Sterlin Harjo.
Throughout her career, Sarah has been passionate about raising awareness and elevating Indigenous and Jewish narratives in the entertainment industry. In addition to her on-camera presence, she writes and produces alongside her husband James Gadon. They are in the works on a 6-episode "road trip" documentary series that took place during the pandemic in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Included in the documentary are local business owners, visual artists and Indigenous activists who provided a sense of community while the region navigated many Covid-19 related challenges. The series also includes an episode highlighting the first Residential School in Canada.
Beyond her work in film and television, Sarah runs 'Totem Designs', where she makes handmade dream-catchers with a modern twist. In 2019, she was a featured artist at the One of a Kind Show in Toronto and her products have been included in various markets across North America, as well as the 2019 HGTV holiday gift guide.- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Adrian Baker is known for Injunuity (2013) and Attla (2019).- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Jill Scott Momaday is known for Silent Tongue (1993), Psyche Ascending (2013) and The Desperate Trail (1994).- Additional Crew
- Writer
N. Scott Momaday was born on 27 February 1934 in Lawton, Oklahoma, USA. He was a writer, known for House Made of Dawn (1972), More Than Bows & Arrows (1978) and Remembered Earth: New Mexico's High Desert (2005). He was married to Regina Heitzer and Gaye Mangold. He died on 24 January 2024 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Stacey Thunder is a producer, television host, actress, and attorney serving Indian Country for over 20 years. She began her television career in 2004 as the host and co-producer of the on-going PBS weekly news magazine series, "Native Report", of which she has hosted 154 episodes in eleven years. Thunder now hosts and produces "Indigenous with Stacey Thunder", an entertainment and educational video series that shares contemporary stories to shatter stereotypes and misconceptions, promote positivity, and simply show the world who Indigenous peoples really are.
As an actress, Thunder has appeared in several films and television shows, including a lead role in the independent feature-length film, "The Jingle Dress", of which she received a Best Actress nomination from the American Indian Film Festival, "Crash" starring Dennis Hopper, "Tallulah" starring Ellen Page and Allison Janney, "The Promised Land" by Poltergeist screenwriter Michael Grais, "Nina in the Woods", "Kid West", and "Cold Feet".
Thunder, who is Red Lake and Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe, is a mother to four wonderful children. She is also a board member of the Nike N7 Fund that provides grant money to Native communities supporting sports and physical activity programs for the youth.- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Writer
Sophie Rousmaniere is known for Yellow Fever the Navajo Uranium Documentary, Fracking the Contract (2019) and Sacred Space: Searching for the Source (2011).- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Devery Jacobs was born and raised in Kahnawa:ke Mohawk Territory and is an award-winning actor and filmmaker. Her breakout leading role in Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013) landed her a nomination for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. Since then, Jacobs is mainly known for her performances in Taika Waititi's FX Series Reservation Dogs (2021-), Amazon Prime Video/STARZ's American Gods (2019-20), Netflix's The Order (2019-20) CTV's Cardinal (2018) and the Amazon Prime thriller The Lie (2020).
Alongside acting, Jacobs is also an award-winning filmmaker. Her short film Rae (2017) was an official selection of the 2018 Palm Springs Shortfest, and won Best Youth Work at the 2017 imagineNATIVE Film Festival. Jacobs was named one of Canada's Rising Breakout Stars by the Hollywood Reporter and was honored by Telefilm Canada at the 2017 Birks Diamond Tribute, celebrating women in film. Jacobs was also a TIFF Rising Star at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Taika Waititi, also known as Taika Cohen, hails from the Raukokore region of the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand, and is the son of Robin (Cohen), a teacher, and Taika Waititi, an artist and farmer. His father is Maori (Te-Whanau-a-Apanui), and his mother is of Ashkenazi Jewish, Irish, Scottish, and English descent. Taika has been involved in the film industry for several years, initially as an actor, and now focusing on writing and directing.
Two Cars, One Night is Taika's first professional film-making effort and since its completion in 2003 he has finished another short "Tama Tu" about a group of Maori Soldiers in Italy during World War 2. As a performer and comedian, Taika has been involved in some of the most innovative and successful original productions seen in New Zealand. He regularly does stand-up gigs in and around the country and in 2004 launched his solo production, "Taika's Incredible Show". In 2005 he staged the sequel, "Taika's Incrediblerer Show". As an actor, Taika has been critically acclaimed for both his Comedic and Dramatic abilities. In 2000 he was nominated for Best Actor at the Nokia Film Awards for his role in the Sarkies Brother's film "Scarfies".
Taika is also an experienced painter and photographer, having exhibited both mediums in Wellington and Berlin, and a fashion designer. He attended the Sundance Writers Lab with "Choice", a feature loosely based on "Two Cars, One Night".
Taika became a blockbuster director with his film Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and received critical acclaim, and a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, for his film Jojo Rabbit (2019).- Director
- Editor
- Writer
Jeff Barnaby was born on 2 August 1976 in Listuguj Mi'gmaq First Nation Territory, Quebec, Canada. He was a director and editor, known for Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013), Blood Quantum (2019) and The Colony (2007). He was married to Sarah Del Seronde. He died on 13 October 2022 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Morningstar Angeline (she, they), born as Morningstar Angeline Wilson-Chippewa, is a queer Navajo, Chippewa, Blackfeet, Shoshone, and Latinx actor and filmmaker. She was born in Santa Fe, NM, to Rita Rose Wilson and Ethan Shawn Chippewa. They were later adopted by Daniel Harold Freeland and raised in Gallup, NM and Los Angeles, CA. Morningstar is a 2018 Sundance Indigenous Lab, 2020 Native American Feature Writers Lab, and a 2021 ImagineNative Directors Lab Fellow and serves on the Board of Directors of the mixed-media company Tse'Nato'.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Chris Newell (Passamaquoddy) is a lifetime educator. He was born and raised in Motahkmikuhk (Indian Township, ME) and is a proud citizen of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township. Chris's education career began immediately after high school as a substitute teacher during his time as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, Chris and other Native students co-founded the Occom Pond Singers, an intertribal drum group as part of the Native Americans at Dartmouth student organization on campus. Pow wows as well as educational performances became the mainstays of the group. From there, Chris went on to join the Mystic River Singers, an internationally acclaimed and award winning intertribal pow wow drum group based out of Connecticut. For the next two decades, Chris devoted much of his time to Mystic River traveling all over the US and Canada singing at community pow wows and spending time in those communities learning various Native musics. When it came time to return to the field of education, Chris would earn an interdisciplinary Bachelor of General Studies degree at the University of Connecticut and begin working in museum education. He is the Director of Education and Co-Founder of Akomawt Educational Initiative. Chris combines his music and education disciplines together to make presentations that educate, but also entertain. Along with his work in education, Chris has also appeared in feature films and was the Senior Advisor on the documentary Dawnland chronicling the historic first ever government sanctioned Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the State of Maine. His dedication to this work goes back to his experiences at Dartmouth. His discography with Mystic River includes: Mystic River Live at Schemitzun (Sweetgrass Records 1996), Mystic River Live on the Trail (Sweetgrass Records 1996), Straight At Ya (Wacipi Records 1998), Thunder from the East (Wacipi Records 1999), Round Dance Mystic River Style (Red Bear Productions 2001), Evolution (Red Bear Productions 2001), and In Loving Memory (Red Bear Productions 2004). He is a second generation Native educator looking to change our world for the better.- Actress
- Additional Crew
Tonantzin Carmelo is a multifaceted American actress playing lead and supporting roles in movies, television series, documentaries, video games, and theater. Her break-out performance in Steven Spielberg's, Into the West, earned her several awards and nominations, including a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female in a Television Movie or Miniseries. Recently, she filmed prime roles in Spain and Australia for the television series The English (BBC) and La Brea (NBC). Throughout her career Tonantzin has received praise for her performances. She played the leading role of Shayla Stonefeather in the critically acclaimed, independent thriller, Imprint. She won the American Indian Film Festival award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Best Actress award at the Hoboken International Film Festival for this role. She was named "An Indie Darling to Crave" at the Sundance film festival 2015 for her role as Teresa, opposite John C. Riley in the film Entertainment. Tonantzin has also appeared in several video games, including Dead Space, The Crew, Lego Marvel's Avengers, and Cyberpunk 2077. Her memorable motion-capture and voice performance portrayal of the villainous character Kendra Daniels for Dead Space led Maxim Magazine to add Kendra to their Hottest Video Game Babes of the Year list. Today, the character continues to attract legions of loyal fans. Additionally, Tonantzin is a talented choreographer. Her work was featured in the Amazon TV series, Undone, and in the opera, Sweetland, for which she was described as a "crucial choreographer" by the LA Times. She has a penchant for languages and enjoys learning new dialects. As a teenager, Tonantzin taught herself to speak Spanish. She also is a member of the Tongva Language Committee for revitalization. To prepare for some of her roles, she has worked with language specialists and has learned dialects for Wampanoag, Lakota, Nahuatl, Diné, Cheyenne, and Shoshone. Tonantzin's diverse talents can be traced back to her multicultural roots. She is a Southern California girl from suburban Orange County of Indigenous and Latina descent. In her youth, she forged a performing path through Native dances and music touring with cultural groups throughout North America. While touring, she also became a technically trained dancer and performed with the modern dance company Daystar. She discovered her love for acting while studying at UC Irvine, where she earned a bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies and a minor in Dance. While in college, she began acting in theater productions and independent films. She has also performed as a singer with the band Trio del Alma and has recorded on three albums for Canyon Records. Her first professional acting venture was an educational musical theater show produced by the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts. The production toured the Los Angeles area and allowed her to make the leap from dancer/musician to a professional actress. She has had an ongoing relationship with Native Voices at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles where she has performed on stage and has served on the advisory board. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband and is a California native plant, wildlife and outdoor enthusiast. In her free time, she enjoys restoring her yard as a native wildlife habitat, observing birds and occasionally rescuing opossums as she continues to perform as a musical entertainer, cultural educator and stage actress.- David Seals was born on 29 April 1947 in Denver, Colorado, USA. He was a writer, known for Powwow Highway (1988). He died on 12 February 2017 in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA.
- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Amber Midthunder is an American actress who uncovered a deep love of acting at a young age. Growing up with an actor father and casting director mother, she began her own on-screen career early in life. Her first speaking role was at the age of 9 opposite Oscar winner Alan Arkin in the indie hit Sunshine Cleaning. Since that time she has continued her work as an actress with series regular roles on Marvel/FX's "Legion", and The CW's "Roswell, New Mexico"; as well as leading feature films such as "The Ice Road" for Netflix and 20th Century's "Prey."
Midthunder is an enrolled tribal member at Ft. Peck Indian Reservation.
Outside of acting she has a passion for animal rights and environmental activism.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Michelle Thrush is a Canadian actress and First Nations activist for Aboriginal Canadians and the other Indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Thrush, who is Cree, was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, by parents she admits were chronic alcoholics. She recalls being called "Squaw" at Bowness High School and bullied because of her parents' illness. In grade nine she changed schools and attended Calgary's Plains Indian Cultural Survival School. There she felt accepted for the first time. She learned about herself, her language, culture, singing and drumming. She remembers: "They filled in a lot of the voids that my soul was just begging for." Her childhood hardships affected her profoundly. Though she acted in her first film at 17 with a role of Sally Littlefeathers in Isaac Littlefeathers (1984), it did not occur to her it could be a career. She planned to become a social worker and help children. She met Gordon Tootoosis, a First Nations actor, who told her: "If [acting] is what your heart wants, you need to follow it and be true." At this point her parents were sober. With no other ties to Calgary, at age 20 she moved to Vancouver and found an agent.
Thrush has said it's been only the last 20 years that Indigenous people have been able to tell their truth through their own stories, though she credits such luminaries as Tantoo Cardinal and Graham Greene for kicking down the doors for Indigenous people in the industry.
Thrush has had a prolific career since its beginning in the 1980s. She began her acting career in film while attending high school. She got her first theatre job when she moved to Vancouver at age 20. She had a small part in the play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. She portrayed numerous recurring and guest roles in the television series Madison (1993), Northern Exposure (1990), North of 60 (1992), Highlander (1992), Forever Knight (1992), Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy (1998), Moccasin Flats (2003) and Mixed Blessings (2007).
She has starred in many notable films throughout her career, particularly in films that deal with issues about Indigenous peoples of the Americas, ranging from Canadian Aboriginals to Native Americans/American Indians (U.S.). These include Isaac Littlefeathers (1984), Unnatural & Accidental (2006), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007), Skins (2002), Dead Man (1995), DreamKeeper (2003) and Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2013).
Thrush has also won numerous awards and special recognition, including multiple Awards for her role of Gail Stoney on the dramatic series Blackstone, such as Best Performance by an Alberta Actress 2015 Rosie Awards for the role in Deeper & Deeper (2014), Best performance by an Alberta Actress at the 2014 AMPIA Awards for the role in Never Gonna Stop (2013), and Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role in 2011 CSA (Gemini) Awards for the role in Suffer the Children (2011) and Best Guest Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series at the 2011 Leo Awards in Vancouver for the role in Arctic Air (2012).
In 2011, Thrush wrote the one-woman play Find Your Own Inner Elder. She has performed the show, most often under the title Inner Elder, across Canada. It premiered at One Yellow Rabbit's High Performance Rodeo in Calgary in 2018 and has since been performed with Nightwood Theatre and Native Earth Performing Arts in Toronto (2019). Inner Elder is a structured monologue which recounts Thrush's personal life and experiences.
Despite the credits and the awards, her desire to help children has never faded. In fact, she says acting has opened the door to helping in a way that social work could not. For the past 10 years, Thrush has traveled to aboriginal communities and shelters across Canada to perform as Majica, a therapeutic healing clown. Majica performs for young kids and teenagers, and also has a show for parents. "Beyond film, my passion in life is working with our families and helping to defragment the damage that was done through residential schools to our families," she says. "You cannot disconnect the child from the parent without huge damage being done. When it happens generation after generation, it destroys the family system."- Director
- Writer
- Producer
- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Actress Tantoo Cardinal is a Member of the Order of Canada, one of the country's highest civilian honors. The order recognizes Cardinal for her contributions to the growth and development of Aboriginal performing arts in Canada.
Arguably the most widely recognized Native Actress of her generation, Cardinal has appeared in numerous plays, television programs, and films, including Legends of the Fall, Dances With Wolves, Black Robe, Loyalties, Luna, Spirit of the Whale, Unnatural & Accidental, Marie-Anne, Sioux City, Silent Tongue, Mothers & Daughters, and Smoke Signals. Recent work includes the films Eden, Maina, Shouting Secrets and From Above.
Her stirring performance in Loyalties earned her a Genie nomination, American Indian Film Festival Best Actress Award, the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival, plus Best Actress Awards at International Film Festivals in Zimbabwe and Portugal.
Cardinal was recently honored with the 2015 ACTRA Award of Excellence; other honors include Best Actress - Elizabeth Sterling Award in Theatre for All My Relations, and First Americans in the Arts Totem Award for her portrayal of the character Katrina in Widows at the Forum Stage in Los Angeles. She won the American Indian Film Festival's Best Actress Award as well as the first Rudy Martin Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Native American in Film for Where the Rivers Flow North, a Gemini Award for North of 60, and a Leo Award for Blackstone.
Her television credits include recurring roles on the series: Blackstone, The Killing, Arctic Air, Strange Empire, The Guard, North of 60, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, The Lightening Field, Street Legal, The Campbell's, Gunsmoke, Tom Stone, Myth Quest, Lonesome Dove, and Renegade Press.com. MOW's include Full Flood, The Englishman's Boy, Dreamkeeper and the PBS documentary Nobody's Girls.
For her contributions to the Native Artistic community, Cardinal won the Eagle Spirit Award. She has also been honored with the MacLeans' magazine Honor Roll as Actress of the Year, the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Toronto Women in Film and Television, an International Women in Film Award for her lasting contribution to the arts, and induction to the CBC/Playback Hall of Fame.- Writer
- Director
- Editor
- Writer
- Director
- Script and Continuity Department
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Temuera Derek Morrison is a New Zealand actor.
After training in drama under the New Zealand Special Performing Arts Training Scheme. One of his earliest starring roles was in the 1988 film Never Say Die, opposite Lisa Eilbacher. In 1994, he received attention for his role as the violent and abusive Maori husband Jake "The Muss" Heke in Once Were Warriors, a film adaptation of Alan Duff's novel of the same name. The film became the most successful local title released in New Zealand, and sold to many countries overseas. The role won him international acclaim and he received the award for best male performance in a dramatic role at the 1994 New Zealand Film and Television Awards. He reprised the role in the sequel, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?, for which he received the Best Actor award from the New Zealand Film Awards. Despite the acclaim he received for his performance, Morrison said in 2010 that he felt typecast by the role, to the point that it was "a millstone round my neck".
In 1996, Morrison played opposite Marlon Brando in The Island Of Dr. Moreau. He has appeared in supporting roles in Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997) and The Beautiful Country (2004). In 1988 he got to show some comic flair in the James Bond parody Never Say Die. In 2005, Morrison became the host of the talk show The Tem Show on New Zealand television.
In the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honours, Morrison was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to drama.
He started writing an autobiography in 2009, which he hoped would inspire others to "reach for the stars".
He released his debut album, Tem, through Sony Music Entertainment NZ in late November 2014. The album consists of covers of songs that his father, and uncle Sir Howard Morrison, used to perform at local venues when he was growing up.
Morrison has gained attention for his role as the bounty hunter Jango Fett in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). Part of the film's plot involves an army of clones created with Jango's DNA; Morrison also provided the voice acting for the clones.[7] He reappeared as a number of clones in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, and re-recorded the lines of the character Boba Fett (Jango's "son") and another clone in the 2004 DVD re-releases of the original Star Wars trilogy, replacing the voice of Jason Wingreen.
Most recently, he became known for voicing Chief Tui, the father of the title character in Disney's Moana (2016). Morrison is currently playing Aquaman's father in the Warner Bros. Feature Aquaman 1 & 2.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Sound Department
Beginning as a commercial artist and photographer, he joined the New Zealand film industry in the late 1970s as a boom operator. He became an assistant director a decade later. Making international award-winning commercials for 10 years, he has also directed several TV series. His first feature film, Once Were Warriors (1994), won the PEN First Book Award.- Actor
- Producer
Cliff Curtis was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, on July 27, 1968.
He is of New Zealand Maori descent (with Ngati Hauiti and Te Arawa tribal affiliations). He enrolled at the New Zealand Drama School, and then the Teatro Dmitri Scuola in Switzerland.
After returning to New Zealand from Europe, he was cast in The Piano (1993). Subsequent roles in New Zealand include the camp melodrama Desperate Remedies (1992), the grueling urban drama Once Were Warriors (1994), and the lighthearted comedy Jubilee (2000).
In Hollywood, Curtis has played a range of different roles and ethnicities in films. He plays a Colombian in Blow (2001), an Arab in Three Kings (1999) and The Insider (1999), a Latino in Training Day (2001) and Runaway Jury (2003), and a drug dealer of ambiguous ethnicity in Bringing Out the Dead (1999). However, he is probably best known for his role as Paikea's father Porourangi, in Whale Rider (2002).- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Renae Maihi (New Zealand Maori) is an international award-winning writer and director in theatre & film whose career highlights include TIFF, Sundance and Berlinale Film Festivals.
Her debut feature film WARU which she wrote & directed in collaboration with 8 other woman filmmakers had its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017. WARU went on to win best screenplay at the NZ SWANZ awards, the Grand Jury Award for an Outstanding International Narrative Feature at the 34th Asia Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles & the "Best of SIFF 2018 Audience Award" at Seattle International Film Festival.
Post pandemic Renae returned to cinema in 2022 as a writer/director with the anthology feature film We Are Still Here which opened the Sydney Film Festival 2022 and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2022. We Are Still Here went on to win the Telefilm award for Best Dramatic Feature Film at the imagineNATIVE Film Festival in Toronto and in 2023 played in major cinema's across Australia and New Zealand.
Represented by Hollywood management company 5Xmedia, an LA based trio of producers Garrick Dion (Drive, Nightcrawler) Scott Einbinder (The Hitmans Bodyguard, Killer Joe) and experienced manager Seth Nagel she is fast growing her reputation on the world circuit as a filmmaker to watch.- Director
- Script and Continuity Department
- Actress
Awanui Simich-Pene is a New Zealand-based Writer, Director and Script Supervisor of Maori and Croatian Descent. A working Director since 2006, Awanui has directed scripted drama and factual content for broadcasters in New Zealand and Australia, while her films have traveled internationally. She is a member of 787 Media, a collective of filmmakers championing indigenous stories.- Director
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Tusi Tamasese was born in 1975 in Samoa. He is a director and writer, known for The Orator (2011), One Thousand Ropes (2017) and Freedom Fighter (2023).- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
A proud Tongan, born and raised in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Halaifonua Finau, or Nua as he's more commonly known, is at the forefront of bringing Polynesian stories to our screens.
He studied at Whitireia Performing Arts as a dancer but made his name in the industry as an actor and presenter. In recent years he's taken his love of performance and shifted his focus behind the camera.
Nua brings storytelling with Tongan swag to the kava bowl of creativity. He is a writer and producer, with a mission to take his little corner of the Pacific to the world. He cut his teeth in children's television as a producer on 'Small Blacks TV', and honed his skills and vibe in series two of the much loved Polynesian series 'Baby Mama's Club'. In 2019, Nua was co-writer and associate producer on 'Jonah', the tele-feature drama series on Tongan and All Blacks rugby legend, Jonah Lomu.
In 2021, Nua teamed up with Four Knights maestro, Tom Hern (The Dark Horse, Guns Akimbo, Shadow in the cloud) and created their production company Tavake, their first drama series 'The Panthers' in which he wrote, created and executive produced alongside Hern was the first New Zealand TV series to premiere at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival. His first feature film, a semi-autobiographical family comedy 'Red, White & Brass' in which he is writer and producer alongside Morgan Waru (Baby Done) and Georgina Conder (Cousins, The Breaker Upperers) and executive produced by Taika Waititi and Carthew Neal's Piki Films is due for release in 2022.- Director
- Actress
- Writer
Katie Wolfe is an award winning Director and Actor from New Zealand. Best known for her films Waru, This Is Her and Redemption. Katie directs across film and television in both drama and documentary. Recent television work includes Artefact and The Brokenwood Mysteries. Recent acting work includes Daffodils and The Ring Inz.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Chelsea Winstanley was born in 1976 in Tauranga, New Zealand. She is a producer and director, known for Jojo Rabbit (2019), Waru (2017) and What We Do in the Shadows (2014). She was previously married to Taika Waititi.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Graham Greene was born on 22 June 1952 in Six Nations Reserve, Ontario, Canada. He is an actor and writer, known for The Green Mile (1999), Wind River (2017) and Dances with Wolves (1990). He has been married to Hilary Blackmore since 20 December 1990. They have two children.- Actress
- Producer
Irene Bedard (born July 22, 1967) is an Alaska Native actress enrolled in the Native Village of Koyuk who has played many American Indian characters in a variety of television shows and films. She is best known for her voice role as the title character in the Disney animated film "Pocahontas," and the cult-classic "Smoke Signals" as Suzy Song. She is known for bringing a powerful emotional presence to her characters.
Bedard was born in Anchorage, Alaska, raised primarily in Alaska, but also spent a few years as a child in Washington state. Her father was Bruce Bedard, and mother was Carol Bedard, and she is their oldest of four - Leslie Bedard, Joseph Bedard, and David Bedard are her younger siblings. She is Inupiaq and Yup'ik on her mother's side, and Cree on her father's side. She graduated from Anchorage's Dimond High School in 1985, and then earned a Musical Theatre degree from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bedard's son Quinn Wilson was born in 2003.
Her first role was as Mary Crow Dog in the television production, "Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee," which depicted the 1970s standoff between police and Native Americans, many of the Pine Ridge Reservation, at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. She received a Golden Globe nomination for the role. Besides the first Disney Pocahontas movie, she also voiced direct-to-video sequel "Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World." Bedard was the physical model for the character. She appeared in a different take of the Pocahontas story in Terence Malick's 2005 film "The New World," as Pocahontas's mother, Nonoma Winanuske Matatiske. In 2005, she was cast in the television mini-series Into the West, portraying the half-Lakota, half-white adult Margaret "Light Shines" Wheeler. In 2011 Bedard portrayed the Messenger in the Academy Award-nominated film, "Tree of Life." In 2018, Bedard reprised her voiced role of Pocahontas for Disney's "Ralph Breaks the Internet."
Her television roles span from 1995, including Stephen Spielberg's "Into the West," "The Spectacular Spider-Man," "Longmire," "Westworld," and "FBI: Most Wanted." She has performed in two Stephen King series, 2017's "The Mist" as Kimi Lucero, and 2020's "The Stand" as Ray Rentner. In the 2017 she portrayed the future Co-President of the United States for the Jay-Z music video "Family Feud," directed by Ava Duverney.
Bedard's decades of creative work includes singing, theatre, spoken word, producing television and movies, speaking, and teaching. She fosters a passion of many creative disciplines, and is a great lover, and adopter, of animals. Bedard was chosen in 1995 as one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People." She's served on the American Indian Enterprise and Business Council to the United Nations, and is involved in frequent activist work around the environmental and Indigenous issues.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Lyle Mitchell Corbine, Jr. ,as a preteen growing up on and around Native American reservations in Wisconsin and Minnesota where his father was a casino executive and his mother a psychologist, was like others of his generation a movie fan but didn't know anything about films that had actually been made by other native Americans until a visit by Bird Runningwater of the Sundance Institute.He then switched from doing his earlier photography and drawing to making his own short subjects using digital single lens reflex cameras and local crews,after which finally several works were accepted at festivals.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Michael Greyeyes is an actor, director, scholar and founding artistic director of Signal Theatre. He is Nêhiyaw (Plains Cree) from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada. His film work includes the role of Traylor in "Blood Quantum," (Elevation Pictures/ Shudder Original), written and directed by Jeff Barnaby, Sitting Bull in "Woman Walks Ahead," (A24/ DirecTV) co-starring Jessica Chastain and directed by Susanna White. He also appeared in HBO's "True Detective" (Season 3) in the role of Brett Woodard and AMC Television's third season of "Fear the Walking Dead," playing Qaletaqa Walker. He has appeared in numerous feature films, including "The New World," directed by Terence Malick, "Skipped Parts," "Sunshine State," directed by John Sayles, "Passchendaele" directed by Paul Gross and "Dance Me Outside," a cult-classic directed by Bruce McDonald.
Most recently, he can be seen as Ralph Drinkwater in HBO's acclaimed mini-series "I Know This Much is True," written and directed by Derek Cianfrance and starring Mark Ruffalo, Apple TV+ "Home Before Dark," Disney+ "Togo," and "V-Wars" for Netflix. He has appeared in a wide range of roles, including "Law and Order: Criminal Intent," to the title role in "Crazy Horse" (TNT), and Tecumseh in "Tecumseh's Vision" (PBS) to mini-series such as "Klondike" (Discovery), "Saints and Strangers" (National Geographic), and "Dreamkeeper" (ABC). As a director, he has created numerous theatre works including "Bearing," a searing dance opera that premiered at the 2017 Luminato Festival in Toronto, "A Soldier's Tale" (National Arts Centre), "from thine eyes" (Harbourfront Centre), and wrote "Nôhkom" (directed by Yvette Nolan). He was nominated for a Dora award for his direction (with Cole Alvis) for "Two Odysseys: Pimooteewin / Gállábártnit," a full-length evening of Indigenous opera featuring 2 librettos in Cree and Sami.
He is represented by long-time manager Alan Mills (Mills Kaplan Entertainment) and talent agents MaryJane MacCallum (ARC) and Harry Gold (Talent Works).- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Additional Crew
Ryan R Black is an Writer, Director, Actor and Producer from Winnipeg , Manitoba, Canada. He is of mixed descent with a Saulteaux (First Nations) mother whose Bloodline tracks to the Black River and Sakgeeng / Pine Falls First Nations. He is also directly blood related to several families of the Hollow Water First Nation. His father is a landed immigrant originally from Trinidad who came to Canada at the age of 15. He prides himself on the perspective his heritage brings to both his mainstream and grassroots work in film and television. He is an instructor for several youth programs in the film and media arts and a strong proponent of human capital and performance as core values in the execution of high quality storytelling.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Jon Proudstar was born on 3 January 1967 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. Jon is an actor and producer, known for So Close to Perfect (2009), Young Guns II (1990) and Wastelander (2018).- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Jana Schmieding is a Mniconjou and Sicangu Lakota actor, writer and comedian known for her work on Rutherford Falls. Formerly a public school teacher in New York City, Jana moved to Los Angeles to further pursue a career in television. Jana was born and raised in rural Oregon, studied theater arts at the University of Oregon and got her Masters in Teaching from Mercy College in New York. She cut her teeth in the improv and sketch comedy scene in New York City where she wrote, performed and directed regularly.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Bobby "Dues" Wilson is a Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota actor, writer, poet, visual artist, and comedian. Wilson is known as one of the founding members of Indian Sketch Comedy group The 1491s.
Wilson grew up in Minneapolis, MN where he and his family frequently lived out of women's shelters and homeless shelters. He began his graffiti artist, and spoken-word poetry careers as a teenager. His work is heavily influenced by his Dakota heritage with his city upbringing, and ties in commentary on colonization, racism, modern imagery of Native American peoples, homelessness, and many more issues faced by indigenous peoples today. He has since created many murals across the country and has been a featured Artist in Residence, including for the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), the Institute of American Indian Arts (AIAI), and Yale. Wilson now travels around the country conducting youth writers workshops, art workshops, emceeing events, and comedy performances with The 1491s. Wilson is also a skilled beader whose work has been featured in Vogue's "Meet 8 Indigenous Beaders Who Are Modernizing Their Craft".
In 2019 The Oregon Shakespeare Festival commissioned The 1491s, Wilson included, to write a play with New Native Theater titled "Between Two Knees". The story tells of familial love, loss, and connection that spans from the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, to the 1973 takeover at Wounded Knee. The play ran from April 3 - October 27, 2019.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Migizi Pensoneau is known for Reservation Dogs (2021), Barkskins (2020) and Rutherford Falls (2021).- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Kimberly is a Native American actor who has enjoyed a long career in film, television, and theatre. Some of Kimberly's recent credits include playing "Auntie B" in FX on the hit comedy RESERVATION DOGS, "Katie Clarke" opposite Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer in the lauded Amazon/BBC limited series THE ENGLISH , and the Mom/Head Ranger in Netflix's new animated series SPIRIT RANGERS. Her recent film credits include the critically acclaimed feature, MONTANA STORY, the gritty revenge thriller and winner of the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award, CATCH THE FAIR ONE and Julie Taymor's inspirational Gloria Steinem biopic, THE GLORIAS, where Kimberly plays legendary Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller opposite Julianne Moore. On stage, Kimberly originated the role of "Johnna" in Tracy Letts' Tony Award-winning play AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (Chicago, Broadway, London, Sydney) and also starred in MANAHATTA (The Public Theater, NY) and THE FRYBREAD QUEEN (Native Voices, LA). Kimberly serves as the Artistic Director at UC Riverside, where she is an Associate Professor in the department of Theater, Film and Digital Filmmaking. Kimberly is an enrolled member of the Colville Tribes and also has Salish heritage, and is married to composer and musician, Johnny Guerrero. The couple have worked for years in tribal communities mentoring youth and supporting wellness through the creation of original films, online content, and music.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Georgina Lightning brings a long track record of creative experience in the film industry as an actor, producer, director and acting coach on such projects as: Dreamkeepers, Backroads, Johnny Greyeyes, Christmas in the Clouds, Tecumseh, the Oath and Smoke Signals among countless others. Lightning has also guest starred in T.V. episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger and West Wing.
Lightning's directorial debut Older Than America has won over 23 awards to date and is inspired by stories told to her by many of her family members and friends who attended the Indian Boarding schools. Most recently Lightning co-founded Tribal Alliance Productions, a production company committed to producing media that matters told from a native prospective. A long time advocate of Native Indian advancement in the film industry, Lightning also formed Native Media Network, a group dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Native Indian talent.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
From small-town Oklahoma native to internationally acclaimed actor and musician, Wes Studi credits his passion and multi-faceted background for his powerful character portrayals that forever changed a Hollywood stereotype. Within a few years of his arrival in Hollywood, Studi caught the attention of the public in Dances with Wolves (1990). In 1992, his powerful performance as "Magua" in The Last of the Mohicans (1992) established him as one of the most compelling actors in the business.
Studi has since appeared in more than 80 film and television productions, including Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Being Flynn (2012), Avatar (2009), Comanche Moon (2008), Streets of Laredo (1995), Mystery Men (1999), Kings (TV Series), The New World (2005), Hell on Wheels (2011), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007) and Seraphim Falls (2006). He also brought Tony Hillerman's "Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn" to life in a series of PBS specials produced by Robert Redford: Skinwalkers (2002), Coyote Waits (2003), and A Thief of Time (2003).
Studi was born in Nofire Hollow, Oklahoma, the son of Maggie (Nofire), a housekeeper, and Andy Studie, a ranch hand. Studi exclusively spoke his native Cherokee language until beginning school at the age of five. A professional horse trainer, Studi began acting at The American Indian Theatre Company in Tulsa in the mid-80s.
Studi and his wife, Maura Dhu Studi, live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They have a son, Kholan. Studi has a daughter, Leah, and a son, Daniel, from a previous marriage.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Kaniehtiio 'Tiio' Horn is a Canadian actress from Kahnawake, the Mohawk reserve outside of Montreal. Since graduating from Dawson College's Professional Theatre Program in 2005 she has established herself as a versatile actress with roles on television including the multiple award-winning comedy Letterkenny, Amazon's Man in the High Castle, Hemlock Grove for Netflix, and the CBC legal drama Diggstown. Feature film credits include Immortals, On the Road, Death Wish and The Hummingbird Project opposite Alexander Skarsgård. Tiio received critical acclaim as Oak in the 2017 action/thriller Mohawk, directed by Ted Geoghegan. Tiio earned a Gemini Award nomination in 2009 for her portrayal of Angel in the APTN MOW Moccasin Flats: Redemption, as well in 2010 and 2011 as part of the ensemble cast of CBC's 18 to Life. In 2018 she launched the podcast Coffee With My Ma, sharing the adventures and experiences of of her activist mother, Kahentinetha. Most recently, Tiio co-hosted the 2019 Indspire Awards on CBC, recognizing the outstanding achievements of individuals within Canada's Indigenous community.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Zahn Tokiya-ku McClarnon is an American actor known for his performances in the Western crime drama series Longmire, the second season of Fargo, and the second season of Westworld. In 2022 he plays the lead role in the AMC series Dark Winds. He also features in the 2021 FX on Hulu series Reservation Dogs, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe series Hawkeye (2021), and Echo (2023).
McClarnon was born in Denver, Colorado, the son of a Hunkpapa Lakota mother and a father of Irish ancestry. He grew up near Browning, Montana, where his father worked at Glacier National Park for the National Park Service. He would often visit the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, where his mother grew up, and often stayed with his maternal grandparents on weekends and for longer visits. His mother lived on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When his father was relocated to Omaha, Nebraska, for work, the family lived in the Joslyn Castle and Dundee neighborhoods. McClarnon has a fraternal twin brother.- Paulina Alexis was born on 10 September 2000 in Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation Reserve, Alberta, Canada. She is an actress, known for Reservation Dogs (2021), Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Beans (2020).
- Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio is known for On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World) (2022), IZ and In the Making (2020).
- Producer
- Writer
Pua Case is known for Standing Above the Clouds (2024), Sacred Mountain (2014) and Standing Above the Clouds (2020).- Producer
- Writer
- Director
- Music Department
- Actor
- Soundtrack
All Hawaii mourned, and more than 10,000 people turned out for a state funeral in honor of Israel Ka'anoi "Brudda Iz" Kamakawiwo'ole. The son of Henry Kalei'aloha Naniwa and Evangeline Leinani Kamakawiwo'ole, Israel was surrounded by music growing up; his uncle was Moe Keale, a very well-known and respected musician, and his parents worked at a Waikiki bar where many of the legends of Hawaiian music performed. Israel started playing music with his older brother Skippy at the age of 11, performing for tourists. One day when Israel was 15, Jerry Koko heard him as he sat playing his ukulele on a picnic table at Makaha Beach. Jerry invited Israel over to his house to play with some friends; there he met Moon Kauakahi and Jerry's brother John. After playing together for a while, the boys decided to form a group, and the Makaha Sons of Ni'ihau was born. The group originally consisted of Israel, Skippy, Moon, Mel Amina (Israel's cousin) and Sam Grey. After playing local events and parties for some time, they were invited to perform on a Jerry Lewis telethon. The Makaha Sons of Ni'ihua met with great success and popularity in Hawaii, recording 10 albums over a period of 15 years. In 1993, Israel decided to leave the group and pursue his own paths. He soared as an solo performer, with his album "N Dis Life" spending 39 weeks on Billboard's World Music chart, rising as high as #8. Israel sang from his heart and soul, and his words and his high, clear voice touched the heart and soul of Hawaii. His heart and spirit were far bigger than his enormous, 700-pound frame, and he grew to be greatly loved. After a beautiful state funeral at the capital building (an honor afforded only two other people in Hawaii's history), Israel's body was cremated, and the ashes scattered at Makua Beach on the Waianae coast where he was raised. He is survived by his wife Marlene Ku'upua Ah Lo Kamakawiwo'ole, and their 14-year old daughter, Ceslianne Wehekealake'alekupuna Ah Lo Kamakawiwo'ole.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Rena Owen is an international award-winning actress, and one of only six in the world and the only female to date to have worked with both filmmaking legends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg during her illustrious career that spans 35 years working in theater, television, film and voice work.
One of nine children, born and bred in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand (NZ) to a Maori/Welsh father and a European mother, Rena was first published at age eight when she won a national children's poetry contest. Throughout her youth she was active in the Maori Culture Club, high school musical productions, and community theater events. Despite knowing her talents laid in creativity, the arts were not considered a viable career.
At 18, she moved to Auckland to pursue a nursing career, and qualified as a general and obstetric nurse (SRN). In 1983 she went on her overseas experience, a common Kiwi pursuit and landed in London. Awed by the huge city and the bright lights of the entertainment world, the temptations that came with it easily seduced the naive 22-year-old but this life changing period led her back to a creative career.
Rena trained at the Actors Institute of London in the mid-1980s. During her formative years she worked in all aspects of theater. The first play she wrote, The River That Ran Away, was produced by Clean Break and directed by her mentor, award-winning British actress Ann Mitchell, with Rena in the lead role. It enjoyed a successful London tour and was later published by NZ Playmarket (1991). Other UK highlights include Voices from Prison with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the award-winning Outside In, which debuted at the Edinburgh Festival.
Upon her return to NZ in 1989 Rena acted in two one-hour dramas for Television NZ's series, E Tipu, E Rea. A first of its kind, the series was written, acted, directed and produced by Maori people. In constant pursuit of learning and honing her craft, she continued to work extensively in theatre acting, writing, directing and working as a playwright. Rena was a founding member of the reputable Taki Rua Theatre Company.
She wrote and recorded short stories for Radio NZ, wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed stage play Daddy's Girl whilst playing reoccurring roles on NZ TV series Betty's Bunch and Shark in the Park. Rena was a rare recipient of a Dame Te Atairangikaahu (the NZ Maori Queen) Literary Award and Scholarship in 1991.
The Kevin Reynolds/Kevin Costner film Rapa Nui in 1993 was her first film role followed by the leading role in the cult classic NZ film Once Were Warriors. Her electrifying performance garnered her universal rave reviews. David Denby declared, "Owen's performance is classic!" Roger Ebert proclaimed, "You don't often see acting like this in the movies. The two leads bring the Academy Awards into perspective." Ruby Rich called her "The Bette Davis from Down Under" while Thelma Adams wrote, "Owen has the looks of Jeanne Moreau, the raw emotional power of Anna Magnani & a slim athleticism all her own".
Once Were Warriors was voted one of Time Magazine's top 10 films in 1994. It garnered over 30 international awards and screened in 66 countries. Rena won Best Actress awards at the Montreal, Oporto, Seattle, San Diego Film Festivals & the Cannes Film Festival's Spirit Award. While in NZ she was awarded the Benny Award for Excellence in Film and the Toastmasters Communicator of the Year Award.
She returned to the Theater to act in Stephen Berkoff's plays East West and Kvetch. Rena earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in the NZ TV series Coverstory, was a series regular in the Australian Network 10 TV drama Adrenalin Junkies from 1996-98, played a leading role in Garth Maxwell's When Love Comes and a supporting role in Rolf De Heer's critically acclaimed Dance Me To My Song that was in competition at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and earned her an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Best Supporting Actress nomination.
In 2000, Rena set up a base in Los Angeles. She played beloved Taun We in George Lucas's Star Wars: Attack of the Clones followed by a cameo role in Steven Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence (A.I). She guest starred on Gideon's Crossing & played a reoccurring role in WB's Angel. Lucas cast her again as Nee Alavar in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. She went on to play supporting & cameo roles in multiple international films. Highlights include An All American Girl, Veronica Decides To Die, Nemesis Game, Alyce Kills, Vincent Ward's acclaimed Rain Of The Children and A Piece Of My Heart.
During 2010-2020, Rena played a 3 month role on NZ's longest running TV series, Shortland Street, and won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 2011 Aotearoa Film & Television Awards (AFTA). A reoccurring role in the award-winning Australian TV series East West 101 earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Australian Academy of Cinema & Television Arts and a Best Actress nomination at the Monte Carlo International Television Festival in 2012.
Cast as a series regular, Rena played the matriarch opposite Brian Cox's patriarch of a multi-ethnic crime family set in the Torres Strait Islands, Australia for an ABC TV series fondly nicknamed 'The Sopranos in thongs!' The Hollywood Reporter voted The Straits as one of the top 10 TV series to binge watch in 2013. Once Were Warriors, the film that launched her international career was voted the number one film of all time in NZ in 2014. Rena starred in a NZ documentary celebrating the film's 20th anniversary called Where Are They Now?
Rena played a supporting role in the New Zealand film The Dead Lands which enjoyed a Special Presentation Premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, garnered rave reviews, and sold to multiple territories. In the USA she played a supporting role in the indie film The Well, recurring roles for A&E's TV series Longmire and Sundance's TV series The Red Road, the coveted role of Glaeser in Vin Diesel's movie The Last Witch Hunter directed by Breck Eisner, and the ghostly villain in the indie film Without a Body.
Rena was cast as a series regular in Freeform's hit TV series Siren which enjoyed 3 seasons during 2016-2019. During the hiatus she played a military major in the Australian film Escape & Evasion, was a series regular in Stan Australia, and ABC's mini series The Gloaming, and played the recurring role of Heveena in Seth MacFarlane's TV series The Orville.
During the coronavirus lock-down, Rena played the lead in Whina, a NZ film to be released in 2022, a supporting role on the NZ TV series VegasNZ, and also renewed her Star Wars role as Taun We in the Bad Batch. In 2021, she completed work on season 3 of The Orville, and was thrilled to be cast as Sarge in Netflix's animated series Super Giant Robot Brothers (2022).
Throughout her remarkable career besides television and film, Rena continues to work in theater globally, and has served on multiple international film festival juries. She also enjoys being a mentor and public speaker when time permits.
Her motto is "Love what you do and do it to the very best of your ability!"- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
David Gulpilil is a legendary Yolngu actor, a First Nations person of Northern Australia, born around 1953. The local missionaries gave him his birthdate of July 1, 1953, just as they gave him his Christian name David, although he admits he liked that name from the start. His last name, Gulpilil, was a totem, the kingfisher. He'd never seen a white person until he was 8 when he visited the mission school, but he never really allowed them to teach him anything.
In 1969, the British film director Nicolas Roeg, scouting locations in the Outback, appeared at a mission in the north and asked if anyone knew a boy who can throw a spear, who can hunt, and who can dance, and everyone pointed at David.
David's easy smile made him a natural, and it quickly became obvious that he was unlike anyone the white man had met in the outback. He was not reserved or suspicious of strangers, and carried song on his lips and rhythm in his legs. David Gulpilil was fearless.
Looking back over his career, he tells us in the documentary, My Name is Gulpilil (2021), filmed while dying of terminal lung cancer, that he never acted, that acting wasn't something he had to do because it was natural. "I know how to walk across the land in front of a camera, because I belong there," Standing on stage, before a camera, or before the Queen of England, David felt comfortable in his own skin whether it was barely dressed in a loin cloth, or stuffed into the white man's dinner jacket.
Roeg quickly cast the charismatic Gulpilil in Walkabout (1971), a film based upon Donald G Payne's 1959 novel about a boy who cheerfully leads children to safety. Without really knowing it, Roeg broke new ground in Australian cinema, and redefined the way that Indigenous people were represented in Australian cinema. The film was an international success everywhere but in Australia, where First Nation peoples had been previously portrayed only by white people wearing blackface. And to top it off, the film broke cultural barriers, presenting on the wide screen a sexually attractive young Black man.
David Gulpilli was, overnight, hurled in to high society as an instant, international celebrity and presented before Queen Elizabeth, who found him quite charming and humorous. She in turn introduced David to John Lennon and that was just the beginning. Before long he was soon shaking hands with Muhammad Ali, Marlon Brando, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Marley, who would help contribute to David's downfall. David taught Bob Marley to play the didgeridoo. Marley taught David to smoke ganja. But it was while filming Mad Dog Morgan (1976) that he got his crash course in hellraising by Dennis Hopper. Later in his one-man stage show he'd say, "If you're working with people like Dennis Hopper and [John] Meillon, well, you gotta learn all about drinking and drugs."
David enjoyed being in front of the camera, and he well knew the importance of his work because it was history and it would "remember to generation to generation," shining a spotlight on his people who had been murdered, exploited, and corralled into camps. The collective history of his people meant everything to him and these films, he claimed, "Won't rub it out."
He was a dancer, a singer, an artist, and a story teller, and fell lovingly into the role of ambassador of his culture to the white man's world, which ironically would eventually divorce him from his culture, as he took to drink and drugs and wound up in trouble with the law, racking up four drink-driving arrests, and one drunken escapade that landed him in jail again, but this time for assaulting his wife. As he admitted in his biopic, "Left side, my country. Right side, white man's world. This one tiptoe in caviar and champagne, this one in the dirt of my Dreamtime."
When he'd been discovered, he spoke no English, though he knew a few dialects of the First People's language, and he was such a quick learner. He began picking up English while just listening during the making of the film, Walkabout, and afterwards as he travelled about the world.
In his one man show, "Gulpilli," he tells the story of trying to use a knife and fork while sitting next to the queen. He cut and cut but couldn't get any meat as he just moved the plate around the table. He gave up and finally picked it up with his hands. Whether true or not, he tells how the Royal Family joined in, eating their meat as he did.
After his sudden fame in Walkabout, David found his way onto Australian television in episodes of Boney (1972), Homicide (1964), Rush (1974), The Timeless Land (1980), and more, and even got a bit part in The Right Stuff (1983).
He was quickly recognized as the most renowned tribal dancer in Australia, and he choreographed the traditional First People's dance in Crocodile Dundee (1986). His love of dance inspired him to organize dancing troupes and musicians that won the Darwin Australia Day Eisteddfod dance competition four times.
His breakthrough role came in the mid-seventies with Storm Boy (1976), one of David's personal favorites, followed up by a lead role in The Last Wave (1977). In fact, his last appearance as an actor was in the remake of Storm Boy (2019), playing the father of Fingerbone Bill, the character he'd played in the original version.
Despite his fame, his earnings were never substantial and he was subjected to racism from agents and film crews. He was often homeless, sleeping in parks. He wound up living in a corrugated iron hut in the community of Raminginig that had no electricity or running water, where he hunted kangaroos, cooking bush meat over an open fire. "I was brought up in a tin shed. I wandered all over the world - Paris, New York - now I'm back in a tin shed," Gulpilil said.
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) is the story of Australia's Lost Generations, in which mixed race First Nation children were removed from their families and placed in church-run missions in order to breed the "black" out of them and integrate them into society. Many of the children ran away from these camps and trackers were sent out after them. David Gulpilil played the formidable tracker in Rabbit-Proof Fence, and that led to a leading role in The Tracker (2002), directed by Rolf de Heer. David referred to this role as the best performance in his career. He won best actor at the Australian Film Institute Awards, the Inside Film Awards, and the Film Critics' Circle Awards.
He teamed up with Rolf de Herr a few more times, but their most unique production was the first film scripted entirely in the Yolngu language, called Ten Canoes (2006). Gulpilil narrated the film and it won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It was after this time that David's life took a downhill turn and landed him in prison because of his drinking and assaulting his then partner Miriam Ashley. After his release he went into treatment and got sober.
Clean and sober he went to work again with Rolf de Herr and co-wrote the film Charlie's Country (2013), the true to life story of an ageing man who yearned to return to his cultural roots. Gulpilil gave the performance of his career, winning four best actor awards, including best actor at the Cannes Film Festival. At the Australian Film Critics Association Awards, he shared with Rolf de Heer the best screenplay award.
Released six months before his passing, My Name is Gulpilil (2021) is, as David put it, the story of his story. Though very ill, David gives us insight into his charismatic life and charm as we witness the full spectrum of his talents. We see him dancing, singing, celebrating, and even painting. One of his paintings, "King brown snake with blue tongue lizard at Gulparil waterhole" hangs in The Art Gallery Of South Australia. He spins wool from his hair, something his ancestors handed down that his father taught him. He takes us for a walk through his land, along the rivers, in the shadows of the mountains, and knowing he's dying, he admits he really doesn't yet grasp it, but tells us, "I'm walking like across the desert of the country, a long, long way. Until the time comes . . . for me."- Actress
- Music Department
- Composer
Tanya Tagaq was born in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada. She is known for Thoroughbreds (2017), True Detective (2014) and Bootlegger (2021).- Richard Erdoes was born on 7 July 1912 in Frankfurt on the Main, Hesse, Germany. He was a writer, known for Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (1994), Crow Dog (1979) and Stein Weißer Mann (1998). He died on 16 July 2008 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
- Mary Crow Dog was born on 26 September 1954 in Rosebud Reservation, South Dakota, USA. She was a writer, known for Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (1994), Crow Dog (1979) and Stein Weißer Mann (1998). She was married to Rudi Olguin and Leonard Crow Dog. She died on 14 February 2013 in Crystal Lake, Nevada, USA.
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Darlene Naponse is an Anishinaabe from Atikameksheng Anishnawbek - Northern Ontario Canada.
She is a writer, film director, and video artist. Her film work has been viewed nationally and internationally. She owns Baswewe Films Inc., located in Atikameksheng Anishnawbek.
Darlene has created 4 feature films and various short films. Some films have played at the Sundance Film Festival, TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), imagineNATIVE Film Festival and have been televised.
Darlene has a Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and a Hon. BA 2001 from Laurentian University.
Darlene was a 2017 Writers' Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize Finalist for "She Is Water" published in The Malahat Review.
Her feature film "Falls Around Her" world premiered at TIFF - Toronto International Film Festival 2018 and screened the Opening Night at the imagineNATIVE Film Festival 2018 (Air Canada Audience Choice Award 2018 Winner).
"Stellar" her fourth film premiered at TIFF - Toronto International Film Festival 2022 and screened Opening Night at imagineNATIVE film festival 2022.
Darlene's work is placed within community and the Natural World.
As a storyteller, Darlene is in search of imaginative images giving truth through word, film, and art.- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
John Trudell was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to a Santee Sioux father and Mexican Indian mother. After a stint in the Navy (and Vietnam) from 1963 to 1969, he became involved with the American Indian Movement, becoming National Chairman in 1973. He held that position until 1979; it was then that his wife Tina, mother-in-law, and three children ages one, three, & five, were burned to death in a "fire of suspicious origin" on their Nevada reservation which was nonetheless never investigated. Beginning in the early 1980's, Trudell began to channel his anger and emotion through poetry, music, and acting.- Actress
- Producer
Born in Keshena, Wisconsin, Tousey is a Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee Native American, raised on both the Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee reservations. A professional dancer and actress, Tousey began doing pow wows as a small child but did not perform on stage until she attended the University of New Mexico. She initially entered the university's law program, planning to specialize in federal contracts and Native American law, but later changed her major to English, and began taking theater arts courses. After graduation, Tousey enrolled in the graduate acting program at New York University's Tisch School of Arts.- Dee Brown became known to the larger public as a novelist and historian. His great novel "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is still perhaps the best historical portrayal of the violent relationship between Native Americans and the expansionist Americans with their roots in the Old World.
Brown grew up in Ouachita County, Arkansas, and Little Rock, Arkansas, where he got to know Native Americans. He realised that the Hollywood movies with cowboys and Indians wasn't the real thing. He started his career as a reporter and went on to become a teacher and librarian. He retired as a professor of library science in 1973 and started writing actively. Many of his stories were tales of the Old West. He also wrote children's books. - Writer
- Producer
- Director
Lucas Brown Eyes is an Oglala Lakota writer. His family moved to California so he could study film and television at Orange County High School of the Arts. He would then get a film degree from USC. In 2014 he was accepted into the ABC Disney Writing Program and soon started writing for shows like Young & Hungry and KC Undercover.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Joey Clift is a comedian, TV writer, and enrolled Cowlitz Indian Tribal Member. He went to college to be a local TV weather person, because as a kid he didn't see any Native American comedians on television which led him to believe he wasn't allowed to work in the entertainment industry. Over the years he's learned that's absolutely not true and he's written for many shows and projects including Spirit Rangers on Netflix, New Looney Tunes on Cartoon Network and Molly of Denali on PBS. He also created, wrote and directed "Gone Native," a Comedy Central digital series about weird racial microaggressions Native American people often deal with, and his award-winning short films have screened everywhere from Just For Laughs to The Smithsonian Museum.
Most importantly, he started the LA Underground Cat Network, which is a 16,000-member strong Facebook group for Los Angeles comedians to share pictures of their cats. He's kind of a cat guy.- Writer
- Actress
- Director
Kelly Lynne D'Angelo is a Native Haudenosaunee comedy, musical, animation, and fantasy writer based out of Los Angeles. In her non-existent free time, Kelly also writes stage musicals and plays Dungeons & Dragons professionally (she kids you not). Recent writing credits include MIRACLE WORKERS (TBS), TIG N' SEEK (HBO Max), and FINAL SPACE (Adult Swim).- Jason Marcus is a writer and comedian from Boston. His writing blends realistic characters with absurdist premises by exploring the uniquely human experience in ways that are universally relatable. Most recently, he wrote for an upcoming series on Netflix. Among his accolades, Jason is a Native American TV Writers Lab fellow and an NBC Late Night Writers Workshop alum. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, their twin toddlers, and a pug named Macho Man.
His various writing projects have placed in the Austin Film Festival, the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards, and the WeScreenplay TV Pilot Contest. Other past achievements include winning the Silver Prize in the Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest and the Spotlight Award for "Best Dialogue" in the Fresh Voices Contest.
Jason also staffed at mitú, a digital media company catering to Latino millennials, and he has contributed editorial pieces to Condé Nast (Glamour) as well as Hearst (Cosmopolitan) magazines since 2014.
He started performing stand-up in his hometown of Boston when he was 19 and was touring internationally by the time he was 22. He won the Detroit International Comedy Festival as well as Catch a Rising Star's "Catch a New Rising Star" Competition, and was a finalist in Budd Friedman and Adam Sandler's "Funny People" Contest in Las Vegas. - Eric Schweig was born on 19 June 1967 in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. He is an actor, known for The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Big Eden (2000) and Skins (2002). He was previously married to Leah ?.
- Actress
- Music Department
- Writer
Cree Summer Francks is a Canadian-American voice actress and singer from Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of Canadian actor and singer Don Francks. She is most well-known for voicing Kida from Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Tiff Crust and Queen Vexus (when Eartha Kitt is unavailable) from My Life as a Teenage Robot, Cleo from Clifford the Big Red Dog, Numbuh 5 from Codename: Kids Next Door, Foxxy Love from Drawn Together, Susie Carmichael from Rugrats, Cynder from The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toon Adventures, Penny from Inspector Gadget and Dr. Penelope Young in Batman: Arkham Asylum.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Writer
In 2023 Cara Jade Myers can be seen starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Brendan Fraser in "Killers of the Flower Moon" (Apple Original Films). Directed by Martin Scorsese, the film is based on David Grann's best-selling book and set in 1920s Oklahoma, where a string of brutal murders took place amongst the oil-wealthy Osage Nation. Myers stars as Anna Kyle Brown, Mollie Burkhart's (Gladstone) sister whose disappearance sets the stage for the investigation into the crimes being committed. Many of those who dared to look into the killings were themselves murdered, and the case became one of the F.B.I.'s first major homicide investigations. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. The film debuted at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival in May, then released exclusively in theaters in partnership with Paramount Pictures on October 20, 2023. The film will stream globally on Apple TV+.
A member of the Wichita tribe, Myers was born in Phoenix, Arizona. Influenced by the arts from a young age, her grandfather, Bobby Hill, was a well-known painter who worked under the name White Buffalo and her grandmother was an acclaimed beader whose work has been displayed in the Smithsonian. Myers was raised in Prescott Valley where she had an innate love for bringing characters to life, and in her early twenties began taking acting courses driving over four hours a day to class, which she now says prepared her for the traffic in L.A.
In 2011 she made the move to southern California, where she began to hone her craft in writing. She was accepted into the 4th Annual Native American Writers Lab, and that same year was a semi-finalist in the ABC/Disney writers program. In 2020 Myers was one of twelve writers selected as a part of A3 Artist Agency's The Colony program, creating a television pilot which is now in production. She finished the year as a Fellow of the Native American Feature Film Writers' Lab. Recent credits for Myers include roles on NBC's award-winning series "This Is Us," and "Rutherford Falls."
Current writing projects include two scripts that are in development, a documentary that is in production and one feature in preproduction. In addition to her work in film and television, Myers is passionate about helping others, and created CRASH Cares whose main focus is to create care packages for the homeless in Hollywood. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband Josh and their pup.- JaNae is a Dakota/Crow actress enrolled in the Fort Peck reservation in Montana. The product of an esteemed Dakota/Lakota clinical psychologist mother and prolific Crow stuntman father, JaNae is an avid scuba diver and lane splitting motorcyclist. Before moving out to L.A. JaNae studied acting at UNM with Paul Ford before booking her first union speaking role on the season one finale episode of Longmire in 2012.
- Jillian Dion is a Canadian born actress based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Originally from Alberta, She is of Plains Cree, Metis and French Canadian descent, adopted and raised in a Dene/Metis household learning about and practicing the languages and traditions from an early age. She discovered acting through an open casting call in Albuquerque, NM while attending the Gathering of nations at age 18, first appearing in the mini-series Into the West.
- William Grew up on a reservation in the central British Columbia, Alkali Lake, BC later his Mother Marilyn and Father Dave, whom are both Residential School Surviviors, would move to Edmonton until William was in his preteens. Having moved back William started acting in local plays for his community and high-school. Williams first taste for acting for film came when he auditioned for a speaking role on a mini-series called "Dreamkeeper". Much later having achieved a partial scholarship, William would Honourably graduate his acting program at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Art. Upon Graduating William returned home to Vancouver, BC where he would book his first role in Twilight saga: Eclipse. -Williams proudest moment was working with Anthony Hopkins in 'Blackway'. "I remember it was one scene. In Vernon, BC a small town in my home province. Tony looked me dead in the eye and smiled 'good work.'" Since than he has learned he can swim with sharks with the likes of Ron Livingston, another idol in, Lorne Cardinal of Corner Gas, and even more recent, Sandra Bullock on an Untitled Project. -William has given back to his community teaching first nations youth in his community acting for Film and Telivision. "The teacher at Sxoxomic school is my cousin, I was briefly visiting home in Alkali Lake and she invited me to her class room to meet her students, I was not ready for that at all, but we adapted a short script from a Shuswap book, a week later we had a short film in the can... Well on an iPad. Wasn't much but they seemed to have a blast learning about writing, making acting choices, getting over fear, blocking, rehearsing, principle photography and editing. So we did a second film, I got a childhood friend of mine to help write it called "Making of a Warrior." Having adapted to a Covid era He's now developing a third project with the youth through Zoom. "We started with 4 actors and now we have 14 or so." William smiles. "2021 I'm celebrating my 15th year sober from Alcohol"