Two-spirit Mi’kmaw teenager Link (Phillip Lewitski) is just discovering — and asserting — his sexuality when his already volatile home life goes off the rails. His abusive father Arvin explodes after the cops bust Link and his half-brother Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony) for stealing scrap metal. When he finds out that his supposedly dead mother Sarah may be alive, Link sets fire to Arvin’s truck and flees with Travis. Sparks fly in a chance encounter with teen drifter Pasmay (Joshua Odjick), who shares Link’s Indigenous roots and offers to help find Sarah — but will Link’s (well-founded) mistrust of people ruin his potential new relationship and the group’s mission?

Director: Bretten Hannam Hatch (Mi'kmaq / L’nu )
Writer: Bretten Hannam (Mi'kmaq / L’nu )
Producers: Julie Baldassi, Bretten Hannam, Gharrett Patrick Paon
Language: English
Canada | 2021 | 108 mins

PREVIEW SHORT FILM:

Spirit Emulsion
Director: Brit Hensel (Cherokee Nation)

Canada | 2022 | 7.30 mins | English

A connection to my mother in the spirit world reactivates Taíno culture and presence, revealing a realm unseen. Meanwhile, amidst a backdrop of flowers everywhere, an ancestral act of sovereignty extends into the future. Filmed on Super 8 and developed by hand with plant medicines and botanicals, Spirit Emulsion evokes a language for Taíno filmmaking in relationship to the earth and cosmos, breathing an ancestral connection into new form.

NOTE: This film is available in the BIRRARANGGA Film Festival 3-pass and 5-pass ticket packages.