• Own Voice

Club Native

Director Tracey Deer (Mohawk)
Year 2008
Run Time 78min
Genre Documentary
On the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake, outside of Montreal, there are two unspoken rules: don't marry a white person, and don't have a child with one. The consequences of ignoring these rules can be dire — loss of membership on the reserve for yourself and your child. For those who incur them, the results can be devastating.

In this honest and affecting doc, filmmaker Tracey Deer follows the stories of four Kahnawake women whose lives have been affected by these rules, shedding light on contemporary Indigenous identity and asking quesitons about how we all understand who we are. 

With her own family as a poignant case study, Deer's film will strike a chord with anyone who's ever thought about ethnicity, culture or their place in the world.

Director

Tracey Deer (Mohawk)

In 2008, Deer won a Gemini Award in Best Documentary Writing, for Club Native. Her debut doc was the award-winning Mohawk Girls, which she adapted into a TV series that ran for five seasons and was nominated for seven CSAs. Beans has won eleven awards, including Best Picture at the CSAs. Most recently, she directed episodes of the series Three Pines, and is currently working on the feature Thorpe, about Native American Olympic gold medalist Jim Thorpe.

 

Writer

Tracey Deer (Mohawk)

Cast

Tracey Deer (Mohawk), Hilda Nicholas, Akwiratékha Martin (Mohawk)

Producers

Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon, Linda Ludwick

Genre

Documentary

Interest

Indigenous Filmmaker

Original Language

English

Language Versions

EN CC, FR Subtitles

Canadian Distributor

National Film Board (NFB)