Shelley Niro

Café Daughter

In a small Saskatchewan town in the 1960s, Yvette Wong, a young girl of Chinese and Cree heritage, struggles with her Indigenous identity amidst family tragedy in this coming-of-age film directed by Mohawk artist and filmmaker Shelley Niro. Yvette’s mother, Katherine, discourages her from embracing her Cree identity, so she explores it in secret. As she learns more about herself and her Indigenous heritage, Yvette finds a friend in Maggie Wolf, who embraces being part Mi’kmaq and encourages Yvette to be proud of being Cree. When her classmates learn about her Cree ancestry, Yvette encounters the realities of being Indigenous, facing prejudice with pride and holding fast to her dream of becoming a doctor. Café Daughter is inspired by true events and based on Kenneth T. Williams’ play of the same name.

The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw

As MITZI BEARCLAW turns 25 years-old, she is faced with a tragic decision – stay in the big city to pursue her dream of designing hats or leave her boyfriend and return home to her isolated reserve to help care for her sick mother. Loyal to her family, Mitzi reluctantly returns to Owl Island to find that not much has changed. Her confidence and modern style clash with the sleepy, slow-paced island; the bullies are the same; the handsome HONEYBOY is still running the water taxi; and ANNABELLE, Mitzi’s mother is still as bitter and unloving as ever. She’s also reunited with her spiritual friends, FAITH, HOPE, and CHARITY who guide her as she navigates a year of anger, loss and love. Mitzi is soon surprised to find comfort in being home and starts to question her destiny.

Kissed by Lightning

Mavis Dogblood is a Mohawk painter from Canada haunted by the tragic death of her husband, who was hit by lightning. She paints the stories he used to tell her, but she can’t come to grips with her loss. It is only after she drives to New York City for an art opening, traveling across what were her ancestors’ tribal lands, that Mavis reconciles herself to her new life.

Tree

Personifying Mother Earth, she walks through her domain. She observes her environment and what has happened to it. She weeps. She feels violated. Not only has man damaged her but they continue to damage each other. She sighs. She will visit and start again sometime soon.

The Shirt

In "The Shirt" Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) artist and director Shelley Niro parodies the archetypal tourist tee-shirt from the point of view of First Nations Peoples as an exploration into the lasting effects of European colonialism in North America. Facing the camera directly and poised against the landscape of “America”, an Aboriginal woman with biker-like accessories bears a sequential series of statements on her tee-shirt that together comprise a discourse on colonialism. The darkly ironic and yet brutally truthful messages of "The Shirt" draw attention to the history of invasion that indigenous peoples have experienced in North America.

Honey Moccasin

This all-Native production, by director Shelley Niro (Mohawk), is part of the Smoke Signals new wave of films that examine Native identity in the 1990’s. Set on the Grand Pine Indian Reservation, aka “Reservation X”, HONEY MOCCASIN combines elements of melodrama, performance art, cable access, and ‘whodunit’ to question conventions of ethnic and sexual identity as well as film narrative. A comedy/thriller complete with a fashion show and torchy musical numbers, this witty film employs a surreal pastiche of styles to depict the rivalry between bars The Smokin’ Moccasin and The Inukshuk Cafe, the saga of closeted drag queen/powwow clothing thief Zachary John, and the travails of crusading investigator Honey Moccasin. This irreverent reappropriation of familiar narrative strategies serves as a provocative spring-board for an investigation of authenticity, cultural identity, and the articulation of modern Native American experience in cinematic language and pop culture.