How Night Raiders uses science fiction to examine the past
CBC
WARNING: This story contains distressing details
It's late 2019 in a forest outside Acton, Ont., and writer-director Danis Goulet's jacket is slick with rain. It's so cold nearly everyone on the Night Raiders set can feel it seeping in through their boots.
But she's not focused on any of that. Goulet has her eyes on the future.
"I think we're on the precipice of a golden age of Indigenous cinema," she said. "These stories are really just starting to get, you know, really massive platforms like our film is. And there's so many stories to be told."
Her words now seem prophetic. Both the zombie thriller Blood Quantum and the drama The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open stunned audiences in 2019. Later, Tracey Deer's Beans won best picture at the Canadian Screen Awards, and the Nunavut-shot extraterrestrial film Slash Back is slated to hit theatres soon.
On the small screen, the series Reservation Dogs holds a 98 per cent "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and, on Friday, Raiders had what production company Elevation Pictures says is the widest theatrical opening ever for a film by an Indigenous Canadian.
WATCH | Night Raiders: Past and future, both imperfect:
Actor Jared Leto carrying around his own head as an accessory? Real. Rapper Lil Nas X, painted head to toe in silver, his body encrusted with pearls and crystals, wearing only a metallic Dior thong? It happened. Actor and singer Billy Porter, wearing a catsuit, carried into the event by six shirtless men in gold pants? Yes.