Native American filmmaker Erica Tremblay wrote the script of her first feature-length film specifically for Lily Gladstone, and she’s more than happy with how the role turned out.
Fancy Dance follows Oscar-nominated Killers of the Flower Moon LGBTQ+ star Gladstone as Jax, a woman raising her 13-year-old niece Roki (Isabel DeRoy-Olson), whose mother has gone missing.
Set largely on the Seneca–Cayuga reservation in Oklahoma, the film reflects the authorities’, and general public’s, indifference to the prevalence of violence against Native women. While the legal system is lax its attempts to find Jax’s sister, it’s aggressive in its determination to bring Jax herself to justice when she steals from white people.
Beyond the oppression felt by Native women, both in Fancy Dance and reality, Tremblay wanted to push focus on to the sense of community that’s embedded in Native culture. When Roki is forced to live with her white grandparents because of her aunt’s criminal record, it’s clear they don’t understand her in the way Jax does.
Which is when Jax hatches a plan to kidnap her niece and continue the search for Tawi.
As Jax, Gladstone – a Native American with Piegan Blackfeet and Nez Perce heritage, who uses both she and they pronouns – is punchy in her determination to do right by Roki and her sister, even if that means doing wrong in the eyes of the law.
“I had worked with Lily on a short film called Little Chief and we became close friends,” Tremblay exclusively tells PinkNews. “I wanted to do something on a bigger scale with her.
“This was my first feature film, so Miciana [Alise] and I were writing the script [and] we wrote it for Lily. Lily was always Jax.
“[They] can do anything, play any character with such incredible grace and talent. Lily shows up very prepared and inside the character, and I think we just knew who Jax was.
“I hope Lily and I get to continue working together.”
Although it’s a small part of the Fancy Dance plot, Jax is a queer woman. Her relationship with strip-club employee Sapphire was intentional, both to give a platform to LGBTQ+ Native people and to present sex workers in a more authentic light.
“I really wanted to have a queer character at the centre of the film because this film was meant to be a love letter to the women and queer folk in our community [who] work on the front lines every day to keep our people safe,” Tremblay said.
“When I think about who those people are in my life, they’re my aunties, they’re the queer folks who are constantly working for safety, running the shelters, doing what has to be done… I feel we haven’t seen enough queer Native people on screen. You can’t list that many.”
Tremblay worked as a sex worker at a strip club “for many years”, and felt their stories weren’t being told by people who had themselves experienced the industry.
“I wanted to have a moment of consensual, queer sex work, and have that be something on screen. So often, when we’re in strip clubs, those scenes are written by people who’ve never worked at one, who have never been a sex worker.”
Those scenes are usually told through the perspective of the client, she added.
“I thought it would be a beautiful opportunity to show that those are women’s spaces and they’re filled with women and their stories and what they’re working for and who they’re in relationships with.”
Although Fancy Dance does shed light on the plight of Native women, and the inordinate rate at which they go missing or are murdered, Tremblay hopes the story is seen largely as one of resilience and heart.
“While there [are] all sorts of oppressive systems weighing down on daily life, [Native communities are] full of love and laughter and humanity,” she insisted. “For so long, specifically around the topic of violence against Native women and the way that violence has been handled [during] the past 150 years of cinema, it’s never been handled with nuance.
“We deserve to be telling our own stories, and often trauma can be mined. We tried to frame the story around human experience and this relationship between these two women [Jax and Roki]. All the rest of the stuff is happening in the periphery as we watch these two women. They are working their way through a difficult situation but doing it with a lot of humanity and love.”
Tremblay is one of 42 individuals announced as part of this year’s BAFTA Breakthrough cohort, a Netflix-backed initiative which provides support for actors and creatives at a defining moment in their careers.
Fancy Dance is available to stream on Apple TV+.
Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.
The post Fancy Dance director reflects on working with ‘incredible talent’ Lily Gladstone appeared first on PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news.