Decolonizing the Film Industry: Indigenous Women’s Voices

Athena Film Festival opened last weekend. The premiere women’s film festival in New York City celebrated its 14th year. In previous years, the amazing festival has had ground-breaking, maverick films and speakers like Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta, Eve Ensler and many more. Held at Barnard College, the labs, workshops and screening of cutting edge films proved to be exciting and revelatory in showing the direction of trends in women’s stories. Filmmakers, friends and supporters conducted talk backs and conversations, and experienced events that explored what it means to be a woman today among diverse groups.

Fancy Dance was a film I enjoyed seeing. There was a Talk Back afterward with the director and creatives who worked on and supported the award winning film, released in 2023 and screened in festivals around the country. Directed by Erica Tremblay and written by Erica Tremblay and Miciana Alise, Fancy Dance stars Lily Gladstone who has been nominated for an Oscar and received multiple awards from critics’ associations, film festivals and a SAG and Golden Golden award for her amazing performance in Martin Scorsese’s masterwork, Killers of the Flower Moon.

The panel after the screening of Fancy Dance.

Like Lily Gladstone and Erica Tremblay, many of the creatives who worked on the film were Indigenous woman and men. The story and themes revolve around Lily Gladstone’s character, Jax, a queer indigenous woman, who must confront her sister’s disappearance, while she lives and takes care of Roki (Isabel Delroy-Olson). Together Jax and Roki struggle to hustle money and at the top of the film we note that Jax with Roki as her accomplice steals a vehicle and drives it to a chop shop for a nominal amount of money. Tremblay, eschews political correctness in her portraiture of Jax and Roki who is not above stealing from a convenience store furtively picking and choosing items she likes while Jax picks up some supplies.

The film combines many elements and is a combination mystery, thriller, road trip and ultimately family drama as Jax deals with having to give up care of Roki to her white father and stepmother. The situation becomes problematic when her grandparents refuse to take Roki to the state powwow where Jax has obfuscated that her mom will be because she is a great dancer.

During the panel discussion which encompassed how the film was made, Tremblay discussed writing the characterizations specifically to go against the stereotyped “Indians” who vie between stoic, noble savages who are guardians of the lands vs. thieves, deceivers and killers who will stab white people in the face. Tremblay intentionally characterized Jax having a record. She steals and hustles money from those she can dupe, as does Roki. And the theme of trafficking indigenous women like her sister, who sell themselves to oil riggers or other temporary workers and then are abused sexually-which most probably happened to Jax’s sister, is highlighted in the film.

Tremblay discussed how indigenous creatives work together and supported each other’s films. When Gladstone worked with her, it was before Killers of the Flower Moon and her performance took off. Then after Tremblay couldn’t get distribution, she and her team slowly applied to film festivals (Outfest LA 2023, Sundance 2023, Hamptons International Festival 2023, etc.) where they won awards for Gladstone’s performance and Tremblay’s overall artistry, Best Narrative feature. By that point Gladstone received rave notices for her performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, and Tremblay persisted. Finally after about a year of struggling, trial and error leaping over distributors who couldn’t see a way to funding the film, Tremblay was thrilled that Apple+TV picked it up.

Tremblay said that Apple+TV was ideal because she wanted the film to have a wide viewership and Apple+TV’s streaming platform was exceptional. Rather than to have it appear in theaters for a week (that could be accomplished by submitting it to film festivals) and would be there and gone before most people saw it, a streaming service would offer it indefinitely.

Panel members affirmed that the indigenous film community networked and stayed upbeat and supported each other, especially during the dark times when they needed to raise money for payroll and then were at a loss about anyone picking up distribution. Tremblay and the others were hopeful about films about indigenous women in the future. Tremblay was working on seeing more humor in indigenous film, to break the stereotype of the remote, cold, unemotional “Indian” which she didn’t quite escape with her Jax character.

See Fancy Dance distributed on Apple+TV. Read my review on Blogcritics https://blogcritics.org/athena-film-festival-review-fancy-dance/