2021 AIFF46 Festival Winners
46th Annual Virtual: American Indian Film Festival® November 5 - 13, 2021
Winner for Best Film
Run Woman Run Directed by Zoe Hopkins
Directed by Zoe Hopkins, Run Woman Run is a rite of passage dramedy with an element of magic. Beck, a single mom, lives in Six Nations, Canada where her dream of becoming a Mohawk language teacher has been forgotten about since the death of her mother. Beck hits a new low at the start of the film when she collapses, and gets a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. She knows something has to change, but she doesn’t know where to start. Her conscience appears to her as the ghost of Tom Longboat – real life sports legend of the early 1900’s. Tom becomes Beck’s trainer and inner voice. Beck has been languishing in unresolved grief for years at her dad’s tire shop. She hates her job, and is only going through the motions. She drives to her mailbox at the end of the driveway, eats terribly, and is uninspired in life. Tom teaches Beck to become an honour runner, where she dedicates each of her runs to an aspect of creation or a special person in her life. It is through these Honour Runs that Beck turns her life around, becoming who she was before grief took over. Along the way Beck meets Jon, a guy who grew up outside of Six Nations, but who has moved home to reconnect with their community. With the help of Tom, Beck embraces the possibility of a new love, a renewed relationship with her son and family, and a new shot at her dream of speaking her language.
Winner for Best Director
Trevor Mack, Portraits from a Fire
Trevor Mack is an award-winning Tŝilhqot’in (Chilcotin) filmmaker, writer, and photographer. Raised in the Tŝilhqot’in community of Tl'etinqox, the foundations of his film work is based upon the nourishment of the next generations of the Tŝilhqot’in nation. His youth work includes collaborating with the Provincial Health Service Authority's suicide-awareness project titled "Cuystwi", where he and fellow award-winning Métis filmmaker Amanda-Spotted Fawn conducted filmmaking workshops in various Indigenous communities throughout British Columbia. His fictional and documentary film projects range from intimate personal portraits of his family's history (Clouds of Autumn, 2015, ʔEtsu, 2017) to nation-bridging panoramas that the Tŝilhqot’in National Government include in their ongoing negotiations over hunting, fishing, and land rights with the Province of British Columbia and Government of Canada (In the Valley of Wild Horses, 2019, Ts’eman Teʔosh, 2020). His debut feature film ‘Portraits from a Fire’ premiered at the 2021 Atlantic International Film Festival, and has won ‘Best Canadian Feature Film’ at the 2021 Edmonton International Film Festival, as well as ‘B.C. Best Emerging Filmmaker Award ’ at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival.
Winner for Best Actress
Dakota Ray Hebert, Run Woman Run
Dakota Ray Hebert is an entertainer and workshop facilitator who was born and raised in Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. Dakota has performed as an actor and comedian across Canada, the United States, La Penita Mexico, and even Shenzhen China! When she’s not writing, telling funny stories, or acting her heart out, she’s cuddling up to her loving partner Dylan Jay, their sweetus (sweet fetus) and their two sweetie pooches Mr. Bean and Lieutenant Dan.
Some career highlights include co-hosting CRAZY LIKE A LYNX alongside Don Kelly on APTN. A feature-length movie she lead, RUN WOMAN RUN, has been winning awards in the festival circuit; reviews all her performance in it “powerful”. Dakota will be seen on COMEDY NIGHT WITH RICK MERCER this winter. She is currently working on her first comedy album, which will be recorded April 2022.
Be sure to follow this Dené busybody on Facebook and Instagram; she’s up to her beaded earrings in work, and is always excited to share her projects.
Winner for Best Actor
Stormee Kipp, Sooyii
Stormee Kipp is of the Shoshone-Bannock and Blackfeet tribes. He is an accomplished high school state wrestler and track and field athlete, running at the collegiate level. Currently he is attending the University of Montana and recently had the lead role in the movie Sooyii which he was chosen as Native American Best Actor by the American Indian Film Festival. Sooyii is his very first movie.
Stormee has had a couple more movies that are just wrapping up and one will be showing in theatre’s this summer and near future. His love for his culture, sports and riding horses bare back have been key factors in his movie role accomplishments.
He is pursing a degree in History and plans to enter a Master’s Program. Acting came his way suddenly and has put a twist in life goals. He plans to continue to pursue his new acting career that he is finding a deep passion for. Acting has opened new doors and he has had the opportunity to travel the world and see it through an Indigenous lens.
Winner for Best Supporting Actress
Violet Cameron, Brother, I Cry
"Brother, I Cry is a dramatic peek into the life of Jon –- a young First Nations man trapped in a world of addiction and cultural displacement. While living a high-risk lifestyle as a wanted car thief and drug addict, Jon finds himself in trouble with his "friend" Martin, a well-known drug dealer after his sister Ava turns both Jon and Martin into the police.”
Winner for Best Supporting Actor
Asivak Koostachin, Portraits From A Fire
Born in Ottawa, raised in Toronto in 1994, Asivak Koostachin is the eldest of 5 brothers and currently lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada. He is of mixed ancestry, Cree from Attawapiskat First Nation and Inuk from Inuvik, Northwest Territories, with blood ties to Norway and Ireland as well. At the age of 12 he booked his first National television commercial for Health Canada, from there he has consistently pursued the craft of acting. That path has Lead him to appear in multiple critically acclaimed Television series “Cardinal” & “Leterkenny” and Starring as the lead in a Canadian Feature Film “Red Snow” as well as two supporting roles in the features “Portraits From a Fire” (Trevor Mack) & “Run Woman Run” (Zoe Hopkins). For the entirety of Asivak’s life he has been immersed within Cree Culture, speaking Cree in his early years and participating in Ceremony throughout his life to this very day. He believes that weaving the old ways with the new will be an essential part of moving forward through this world in a good way.
Winner for Best Documentary Feature
Savage Land, Directed by Campbell Dalglish & Dr. Henrietta Mann
"When Custer County Police kill 18 year old Cheyenne Arapaho Mah-hi-vist Red Bird Goodblanket in his family's kitchen, descendants of the Sand Creek and Washita Massacres take us back 150 years to reveal how historical trauma and the horrors of the past are still present in America today."
Winner for Best Documentary Short
Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again, Directed by Courtney Montour
Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again shares the powerful story of Mary Two-Axe Earley, who fought for more than two decades to challenge the discrimination against Indigenous women embedded in Canada’s Indian Act and became a key figure in Canada’s women’s rights movement.
Winner for Live Short
Kwêskosîw (She Whistles), Directed by Thirza Cuthand
En route to her girlfriend's place on a night when the Northern Lights are out, a 2-Spirit nêhiyaw woman is assaulted by her cab driver. Amidst the struggle, she discovers a deadly supernatural power that may help her solve the mystery of her mother's disappearance.
Winner for Animated Short
How to Lose Everything: A Field Guide, Directed by Christa Couture, bekky O'Neil
Through the loss of her leg, her children, her marriage, and her voice, Christa Couture presses into the pages of this field guide stories and notes on how to lose everything.
Winner for Best Music Video
Dream, featuring Doc Native and Spencer Battiest Directed by Adam Conte
Doc Native and Spencer Battiest of the Seminole Tribe of Florida collaborate on a single for the first time in over a decade. Dream is a fight song, an anthem, and call to action on overcoming struggles in life. The Dream video showcases indigenous people striving for their dreams in the world of athletics, media, politics, and entertainment.