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Similar to 2019’s Blood Quantum, which also stars Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Night Raiders uses a fantastical premise to explore the intergenerational trauma that Indigenous cultures have faced throughout history, while celebrating their collective strength. Although Tailfeathers’ Niska isn’t fighting zombies in writer-director Danis Goulet’s film, she’s fighting something altogether more sinister. Night Raiders depicts a world where children are owned by the government and taken into their city-state institutions to become citizens — even if this means forgetting their families, culture and an integral piece of their humanity. Although Goulet’s film begins in 2043, it’s allegorically tied to Canada’s oppressive and abusive residential school systems that operated from the early 1880s and into the 20th century.
At the heart of Night Raiders is Niska and her daughter Waseese’s relationship. Despite living six years in the bush undetected by the government, Niska is forced to give Waseese up to the government. However, as Niska embarks on a mission to get her daughter back, she runs across fellow Cree vigilantes who push her to help them save all Indigenous children. Tailfeathers sat down with CBR to discuss the challenges and pride in bringing Niska’s vulnerability and strength to life on screen.
CBR: As someone who has studied both film and the First Nations and is Indigenous [Blackfoot and Sámi], what was important for you to bring on-screen to your depiction of Niska, a character who is Cree?
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers: To me, Niska represents so many Indigenous women that I know. She’s someone who has experienced a lot of trauma and exists on the margins but manages to be an everyday hero in the things that she does. She’s completely guided by love: it’s the love for her daughter, which she strives for, and I think that’s really beautiful.
I think there’s the potential to get lost in the sadness and the sorrow of her story — and her story is very heavy. But there is a great deal of strength to her character. I think that that’s really important to focus on. I think what Danis [Goulet] did was so beautiful, in terms of weaving the relationship between Niska and Waseese and building the relationship between them, and really focusing on the love between a mother and daughter, and humanizing the story.
I tried to really lean into that into the love between her and her daughter. I hope that audiences see that love and see the humanity that exists there, and also the strength in this woman, who’s up against so much and still manages to keep moving forward.
Speaking of Brooklyn Letexier-Hart, she’s amazing in the role of Waseese. What was it like forming that mother-daughter dynamic with her?
Yeah, Brooklyn is incredible. She’s so bright and so talented. I think what’s really important about Brooklyn and portraying Waseese is that she’s acutely aware of the political aspects of the story. She’s very politically conscious. So she understands it on that level. But she also understands it on a personal level — and she talks about that stuff with the press before. So she brings both the quality of political understanding and consciousness and also just a beautiful vulnerability and strength in her understanding of the story on a personal level.
Working with her was really wonderful. Danis helped build a sense of trust between us off the get-go. From there on, we had a really lovely natural chemistry as mother and daughter on screen. It was such a delight working with Brooklyn. She’s a wonderful young woman.
What’s something that writer/director Danis Goulet did as a filmmaker that really made everyone on set feel comfortable that you would love to share for future storytellers or actors or directors to use when they tackle heavier subject matters like intergenerational trauma?
Danis brought a true sense of trauma-informed care to the work. For any Indigenous person in this country, there is a connection to Canada’s residential school legacy. For me, my grandparents both went to residential school and my father went to a Sámi boarding school. Brooklyn has talked about her own family’s experiences of residential school. We had a lot of additional crew, and again, for them, the stories are personal. Danis really brought in a sense of trauma-informed care to the work, and that meant creating a culturally safe environment. That meant open lines of communication and transparency. Just a lot of open communication with actors and crew and everything to make sure that we had support on set.
There were Elders. There were people from the community who were able to help when difficult times came up. For instance, in the scene where Niska has to leave Waseese and give her up, that was a really, really hard scene, not only for me as an actor but also for a number of crew members to witness that story that for them was very personal as well. So Danis shut things down for a little bit, and I was able to smudge and reset and feel as though I was culturally supported and felt safe to carry out this really, really challenging scene. So, yeah, there were just moments like that, that were really important to the process of making this film. Even on a foundational level, having so many Indigenous people involved in the crew made a huge difference.
Speaking of the Night Raiders crew, and the production as a whole, what was something that you were most proud of from being a part of the process?
I think the entire project is so special, so much a first of its kind. It was really incredible to witness this Canadian/New Zealand co-production and have Maori people on set with the crew and Maori producers and then also having Indigenous people from North America involved in so many different capacities and this beautifully diverse group of Indigenous people as cast. It was a really profound experience to come to work every day and see so many Indigenous faces and feel a great deal of joy and pride in the work that we were doing. So I can’t say there’s a specific thing. I think it’s just the overall project and the process itself was really incredible. I’m immensely proud to be part of it.
What do you hope younger Indigenous audiences take away from this film?
I hope they take away a sense of hope and pride in our strength as Indigenous people. The story is set in this dystopian future and framed within speculative fiction, but it’s very much rooted in truth and rooted in the experience of so many Indigenous people. So it’s a hard film to watch in that sense, because you know what you’re seeing is true. But I think ultimately, it’s about love and strength, and the fact that we’ve already survived the apocalypse and we continue to move forward. I really hope that young Indigenous people and audiences as a whole walk away with a sense of hope and strength and a celebration of Indigenous love and joy.
Night Raiders is now in theaters, Digital and VOD.
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