I'm done with Indigenous and queer characters that are sad or hard all the time. Part of that is working with the actors and talking about how they relate to the character and see how they can draw things from their own life and adjust scenes to align with their realities and experiences. They are both internal, but Pasmay tends to joke more, and Travis has no filter, so those tactics bring the characters to life. So, it becomes more how do these individual characters deal with those difficult feelings? Everyone had different tactics to deal with being sad, or bummed out, or pissed off. Pasmay has similar issues, or stones in his shoe, but they are different aspects. I created these young people who have all these things going on inside of them - Link is angry, and has shame, guilt, and feeling that he's not enough. There was a lot that went into building up their backstories - who they were, and where they came from.
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People are fascinating, and characters should also be fascinating and have those layers. It is easy when you're dealing with this type of story to become too heavy, or dwell in melodrama, but the goal was to play characters who are real and complex and occasionally contradictory. What decisions did you make regarding the characters? The film is very much about feelings of shame, and worthlessness, but also freedom and independence. As I started to make short films, they were inherently queer or Native Indigenous stories, and as I figured out my identity and my community, and where I fit, there were a lot of dissenting voices from different directions - "You can't do that" - and that makes me want to prove them wrong. And the only Indigenous stuff was in the Westerns my dad would watch, and the were, by and large, not Indigenous people. It ties back to when I was growing up, I watched a lot of movies - but none of them were queer.
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But when I began to engage in that process, someone encouraged me to check out the film program, so that is how I got into it. I went to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and I studied painting and drawing. I have always been into creative expression - usually with writing or drawing. I've always been a storyteller, even when I was young, I would make up stories. Given how few Two-Spirited Indigenous filmmakers there are, what drove you to become a filmmaker? Hannam spoke with Salon about "Wildhood" and the Two-Spirit and Mi'kmaq communities. Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
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Link is an angry, impulsive teenager - he often speaks and acts before he thinks - but he is searching for a sense of belonging, questioning his family, his sexuality and his Indigenous identity. Hannam displays a real sensitivity in telling a story about community and family. On their journey, they encounter Pasmay (the scene-stealing Joshua Odjick), a Two-Spirit, as well as Smokey ( Michael Greyeyes), a baker, along with other Indigenous folks who help Link and Travis.
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The film takes a road movie narrative as Link, and his younger half-brother, Travis (Avary Winters-Anthony), flee their abusive father, Arvin (Joel Thomas Hynes), and search for Link's absent mother, Sarah (Savonna Spracklin), who, until recently, Link believed to be dead. The feature is expanded from Hannam's 2019 award-winning short, "Wildfire." Bretten Hannam is a Two-Spirit, non-binary Mi'kmaq person, whose film, "Wildhood," about Link (Phillip Lewitski), a Two-Spirit Mi'kmaq teenager, is having its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this week.