Danis Goulet is a Cree/Métis filmmaker from La Ronge. (Submitted photo/Danis Goulet)

By Derek Cornet

accomplishment

Northern filmmaker honoured with TIFF Emerging Talent Award

Sep 1, 2021 | 5:00 PM

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has announced La Ronge filmmaker Danis Goulet will receive the Emerging Talent Award later this month.

In bestowing Goulet with the honour, she was described as a visionary filmmaker who uses film as a powerful vehicle for Indigenous storytelling and social change. Goulet will receive the accolade during the live TIFF Tribute Awards airing Sept. 18.

“It’s really exciting. I’m really thrilled. TIFF has supported me for a long time,” she said. “I’ve worked at the festival as both a programmer, but also they supported my short films.”

Goulet, who is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences responsible for selecting Oscar winners, will also have the North American debut of her first feature length film Night Raiders at the festival. It follows her shorter films Wapawekka and Barefoot, both of which were shot in northern Saskatchewan.

Night Raiders is about a Cree mother and daughter on the run in 2043. The mother joins an underground band of vigilantes to try and rescue the daughter from a state-run institution.

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“It imagines the children are the property of the state,” Goulet, who is the director and writer, said. “Even though it is set in a fictional future, it is very much dealing with all the real historical policies that were inflicted upon Indigenous Peoples throughout history and especially the residential school system.”

Night Raiders marks Danis Goulet’s first feature length film. (IMBD)

The approximately 95-minute film was shot prior to the pandemic in Ontario, before moving into post-production with some work occurring in New Zealand. It features actors Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Brooklyn Letexier-Hart, Alex Tarrant, Amanda Plummer and Violet Nelson.

Goulet noted Night Raiders already premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, adding she expects it will be released in Cineplex theatres across Canada by November. She will also be doing community screening in various communities including La Ronge at a yet to be determined date.

“I’m so excited to share it with everybody and I hope it offers something for people,” Goulet said. “I am proud to be from Saskatchewan and from the North. I’m really excited to have the film at TIFF and then eventually bring it home.”

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @saskjourno