Tracey Deer

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Tracey Penelope Tekahentakwa Deer
Born (1978-02-28) February 28, 1978 (age 46)
Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada
NationalityKahnawakeronon
EducationQueen of Angels Academy, Dartmouth College

Tracey Penelope Tekahentakwa Deer (born February 28, 1978) is a First Nations (Mohawk) screenwriter, film director and newspaper publisher based in Kahnawake, Quebec. She has written and directed several award-winning documentaries for Rezolution Pictures, an Aboriginal-run film and television production company. In 2008, she was the first Mohawk woman to win a Gemini Award, for her documentary Club Native . Her TV series Mohawk Girls had five seasons from 2014 to 2017. She also founded her own production company for independent short work.

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In March 2021, Deer's dramatic film Beans was featured at the New York International Children's Film Festival. Set during the Oka crisis of 1990, which Deer lived through as an adolescent, it stars Kiawenti:io Tarbell (Mohawk), a young actress from Akwesasne. [1]

Early life and education

Tracey Deer was born in 1978 and grew up in a large, close-knit Mohawk family in Kahnawake, a reserve in Quebec, Canada that is south of the St. Lawrence River, across from Montreal. She is a member of the Bear Clan [2] and attended local schools: Karonhianhnonha School Elementary and Queen of Angels Academy. [3]

Deer moved to the United States for college, attending Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She graduated with a degree in film studies. [3]

Career

Documentaries

Deer's first Rezolution/NFB co-production explored the lives of three teenage girls from her reserve. They faced the same decision as she had at their age: to move away and risk losing their rights as Mohawks, or stay and give up the possibilities offered by the outside world. [4] Mohawk Girls received the Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award at the 2005 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. [5]

Deer co-directed One More River: The Deal that Split the Cree . This won the Best Documentary Award at Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois and was nominated for Best Social/Political Documentary at the Gemini Awards. [5]

Deer became the first Mohawk woman to win a Gemini Award, for Club Native , a documentary on Mohawk identity, community, and tribal blood quantum laws. The film received the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Canada Award for best Canadian multi-cultural program, while Deer received another Gemini for best writing. [3] Club Native also received the award for Best Documentary at the Dreamspeakers Festival in Edmonton, the award for Best Canadian Film at the First Peoples' Festival, and the Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Documentary at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival. The film was co-produced by Rezolution Pictures and the National Film Board of Canada. [6]

Other film work

In 2009, Deer collaborated with Montreal writer Cynthia Knight on Crossing the Line, a live-action 3D short for Digital Nations. This was an NFB and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network joint project, featuring Aboriginal talent at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. [3]

Deer and Knight also worked together in 2009 on the comedy television pilot Escape Hatch. A spin-off of a short she had directed in 2007, it explores the lives of four young Mohawk women at Kahnawake making their way in the 21st century, including looking for relationships. [3] In 2014 it was picked up as Mohawk Girls (the same as her documentary) and ran for five seasons. [7]

Deer formed her own production company, Mohawk Princess Productions. She wants to produce her own short fiction films. [5]

Her drama film Beans was the winner of the TIFF-CBC Films Screenwriter Award in 2019, [8] and premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. Set during the Oka crisis of 1990, it features a young Mohawk girl nicknamed "Beans", played by Kiawaenti:io Tarbell of Akwesasne. [9] [1]

TV work

In 2014, Deer wrote and produced the first season of Mohawk Girls, adapted from her documentary of the same name. Broadcast on CBC, the show follows the daily lives and struggles of four young women who live in Kahnawake. The fifth and final season was to be completed in 2017. [7]

In 2019, Deer joined the writing room for the third season of the television series Anne with an E , loosely based on the classic book Anne of Green Gables . [10] In that season the writers added an indigenous storyline and new characters. Ka'kwet, a young Mi'kmaq girl, is played by Mohawk actress Kiawenti:io Tarbell. She befriends Anne, and her family members are also part of the season.

Personal life

Deer is married to a non-First Nations person. [11] In April 2017, The Globe and Mail reported that there were rumours that authorities on the First Nations Reserve where Deer lives, and where her hit show is set, had sent her an eviction notice. The Kanahwake membership rules do not allow non-Natives, even spouses, to live on the reserve.

Deer said the rumour was false. She was concerned that she might yet face eviction because of her political activism; she had long opposed the eviction of non-Native spouses from housing on the reserve. [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohawk language</span> Iroquoian language spoken by Mohawks in the United States and Canada

Mohawk ( ) or Kanienʼkéha is an Iroquoian language currently spoken by around 3,500 people of the Mohawk nation, located primarily in current or former Haudenosaunee territories, predominately Canada, and to a lesser extent in the United States. The word "Mohawk" is an exonym. In the Mohawk language, the people say that they are from Kanien:ke and that they are Kanienʼkehá꞉ka "People of the Flint Stone Place" or "People of the Flint Nation".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohawk people</span> Indigenous First Nation of North America

The Mohawk, also known by their own name, Kanien'kehà:ka, are an Indigenous people of North America and the easternmost nation of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy.

The Oka Crisis, also known as the Kanehsatà:ke Resistance ,, or Mohawk Crisis, was a land dispute between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka, Quebec, Canada, over plans to build a golf course on land known as "The Pines" which included an indigenous burial ground. The crisis began on July 11, 1990, and lasted 78 days until September 26, with two fatalities. The dispute was the first well-publicized violent conflict between First Nations and provincial governments in the late 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kahnawake</span> First Nations reserve in Quebec, Canada

The Kahnawake Mohawk Territory is a First Nations reserve of the Mohawks of Kahnawá:ke on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, across from Montreal. Established by French Canadians in 1719 as a Jesuit mission, it has also been known as Seigneury Sault du St-Louis, and Caughnawaga. There are 17 European spelling variations of the Mohawk Kahnawake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanesatake</span> Mohawk Territory in Quebec, Canada

Kanesatake is a Mohawk settlement on the shore of the Lake of Two Mountains in southwestern Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Ottawa and Saint Lawrence rivers and about 48 kilometres (30 mi) west of Montreal. People who reside in Kanehsatà:ke are referred to as Mohawks of Kanesatake. As of 2022, the total registered population was 2,751, with a total of about 1,364 persons living on the territory. Both they and the Mohawk of Kahnawake, Quebec, a reserve located south of the river from Montreal, also control and have hunting and fishing rights to Doncaster 17 Indian Reserve.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Akwesasne</span> Mohawk territory in New York and Canada

The Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne is a Mohawk Nation (Kanienʼkehá:ka) territory that straddles the intersection of international borders and provincial boundaries on both banks of the St. Lawrence River. Although divided by an international border, the residents consider themselves to be one community. They maintain separate police forces due to jurisdictional issues and national laws.

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance is a 1993 feature-length documentary film by Alanis Obomsawin, highlighting the events of the 1990 Oka Crisis. Obomsawin documents the events of The Siege of Kanehsatake over 78 days, capturing a rare perspective of an important turning point in Canadian history. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, the film won 18 Canadian and international awards, including the Distinguished Documentary Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association and the CITY TV Award for Best Canadian Feature Film from the Toronto Festival of Festivals.

The Mohawk Nation reserve of Kahnawake, south of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, includes residents with surnames of Mohawk, French, Scots and English ancestry, reflecting its multicultural history. This included the adoption of European children into the community, as well as intermarriage with local colonial settlers over the life of the early village. Located along the St. Lawrence River south of the city of Montréal on the shores of the St-Louis rapids, it dates to 1667 as a Jesuit settlement called Mission Saint-François-Xavier du Sault-Saint-Louis. The original mission was located in what is now La Prairie and was called Kentake by its first Oneida settlers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaniehtiio Horn</span> Canadian actress (b. 1986)

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Rezolution Pictures is an Indigenous film and television production company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The company was founded in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Ernest Webb and Catherine Bainbridge. Rezolution Pictures’ passionate team is led by co-founders/Presidents/directors/executive producers Ernest Webb and Catherine Bainbridge, Vice-President/executive producer Christina Fon, and CFO/executive producer Linda Ludwick.

Club Native is a 2008 documentary film by Tracey Deer, exploring Mohawk identity, community and tribal blood quantum laws. The film looks at how women in Deer's home community of Kahnawake risk losing their right to live on the reserve, after marrying non-natives.

Mohawk Girls is a 2005 documentary film by Tracey Deer about the experiences of adolescent girls growing up on the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake, across the Saint Lawrence River from Montreal, Quebec. Deer, who was born and raised in Kahnawake, focuses on three young women: Felicia, Amy, and Lauren, a mixed race teen.

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Mohawk Girls is a Canadian comedy-drama series developed by Tracey Deer based on her 2005 documentary Mohawk Girls. The program premiered on OMNI Television and on APTN in the fall of 2014 and entered its fourth season in 2016. It is available for streaming on CBC Gem and it was picked up by the Peacock streaming service in 2021.

Roxann (Karonhiarokwas) Whitebean is an independent film director and media artist from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake (Canada).

<i>Beans</i> (2020 film) 2020 film by Tracey Deer

Beans is a 2020 Canadian drama film directed by Mohawk-Canadian filmmaker Tracey Deer. It explores the 1990 Oka Crisis at Kanesatake, which Deer lived through as a child, through the eyes of Tekehentahkhwa, a young Mohawk girl whose perspective on life is radically changed by these events.

Kiawenti:io Tarbell, known mononymously as Kiawentiio, is a First Nations actress and singer. She made her television debut in the third season of the CBC series Anne with an E (2019) and her film debut in Beans (2020). She currently stars as Katara in the Netflix live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024).

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References

  1. 1 2 Graeber, Laurel (March 5, 2021). "Children's Film Festival Pushes Boundaries, Mixing Somber and Sweet". New York Times. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
  2. ↑ Garlow, Nahnda (March 12, 2014). "'Mohawk Girls' picked up for two seasons". Two Row Times . Retrieved November 19, 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Griffin, John (December 5, 2009). "Tracey Deer is shattering stereotypes". Montreal Gazette. Canwest. Archived from the original on August 20, 2012. Retrieved December 14, 2009.
  4. ↑ "Mohawk Girls". Women Make Movies . Retrieved December 14, 2009.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Tracey Deer". Biography. Native Networks, Smithsonian Institution . Retrieved December 14, 2009.
  6. ↑ "Club Native". Collection. National Film Board of Canada. 2008. Retrieved December 14, 2009.
  7. 1 2 "Tracey Deer, creator of Mohawk Girls".
  8. ↑ Lauren Malyk, "Tracey Deer, Meredith Vuchnich win TIFF-CBC screenwriter award". Playback , January 25, 2019.
  9. ↑ "Tracey Deer captures 'shattered innocence' with film set during Oka Crisis". ca.news.yahoo.com. September 22, 2019. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  10. ↑ Pinto, Jordan (March 12, 2019). "Anne adds Indigenous storylines, characters for new season" . Retrieved October 14, 2019. Tracey Deer [...] joins the all-female, Walley-Beckett-led writing team for season three.
  11. 1 2 Robert Everett-Green (April 7, 2017). "Despite CBC report, Tracey Deer isn't being evicted from Kahnawake over her mixed marriage – but she's taking a stand on it anyway". The Globe and Mail . Archived from the original on April 8, 2017. Retrieved November 6, 2020. In a way, the 39-year-old filmmaker has been priming for most of her life for a confrontation that has yet to occur. She's deeply concerned with identity, she said, and the constraints of the Kahnawake membership law run through her work.
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