Two-spirit thriller to screen in Toronto for upcoming week

By Rick Garrick

TORONTO—Indigenous filmmaker Bretten Hannam reversed the old cowboys and Indians theme in his award-winning, two-spirit thriller North Mountain, which will be screened for a week at The Carlton Cinema in Toronto beginning June 29.

“When we were making this movie, I thought ‘wouldn’t it be cool to turn the tables a bit and flip it around?’,” says Hannam, who is of Mi’kmaq, Ojibwe and Scottish ancestry from Nova Scotia. “So instead of in the old movies [where] it was cowboys chasing down Native people, it’s two Native guys chasing the cowboy-type people out of their land.”

Hannam says it is upsetting how the old cowboys and Indians movies glossed over the true history of First Nations people and portrayed them as bad people while the settlers were portrayed as noble and brave.

“Those [movies] are not true if you look at history in any way,” Hannam says. “It’s just really upsetting to see that all gets glossed over in movies.”

The film focuses on how a young Mi’kmaw hunter, played by Justin Rain, and a wounded ex-con on the run from the law, played by Glen Gould, interact with a group of “crooked cops” who are searching for stolen money.

“[The cops] start attacking their family and their community, so these guys have to band together and support each other and help each other and drive away these outsiders,” Hannam says. “So it’s kind of a story about protecting your land and your family.”

Hannam says the film, which was shot in Kejimkujik National Park in southwestern Nova Scotia about two years ago, was his first feature-length film.

“I’m just excited to share it with people,” says Hannam, who previously created a range of five-to-ten minute films. “Now I can finally say it is going to be in the theatre and people can go and watch it—at least in Toronto.”

Gould says there has been a good response to the film, noting that people appreciated that the film was also about a love story between the two main characters.

“For both of us, myself and Justin Rain, to do this film as two straight men playing two gay men wasn’t really that much of a challenge,” Gould says. “We said: ‘Let’s just look at it this way, we’re portraying two people who are in love. It doesn’t matter what sex they are, they’re just two people.’”

Gould says the two main characters are portrayed as “two macho men.”

“One is a hunter-trapper and the other guy is kind of a bad-assed gangster,” Gould says. “They’re just two people who happen to fall in love with each other. I think that is one of the biggest messages in this film, that when hearts meet it doesn’t see any colour or sex or race.”

Gould enjoyed working as a team on the film.

“We were all in an isolated area where we were staying together and we all got to know each other really good,” Gould says. “It was kind of a winter retreat beside a raging river.”

Gould says it was a challenge to shoot some days due to blizzard conditions.

“There were a couple of days where we couldn’t shoot because we were snowed in or the road was too icy to get us out from our accommodations,” Gould says. “And it was really cold.”

The film has been screened at 13 film festivals and recognized with some awards, including the Screen Nova Scotia Award for Best Feature Film.