reblogging again about Big Eden made me think about some of the native american/canadian queer cinema (Indigiqueer Cinema) I've enjoyed.
Found a handy dandy Letterboxd List called Queer Native Pride and Beyond that has a whole bunch of movies I haven't seen yet, and below some of the ones I've gotten to experience (three out of four are linked):
Big Eden: a story about a gay man who returns home, because his grandfather gets sick. A sweet, beautiful man (played by Eric Schweig) starts to secretly make him food to help out. it's an amazing slice-of-life/subtly utopian bit of film-making, in that nobody in the town is homophobic, but being gay/shame is still a big part of the exploration within it.
Wildhood: a movie I got to watch at a film festival (always good to go to your local queer film festivals, many surprises to be had) and it blew me away. a roadtrip movie about two brothers who escape their abusive father to reconnect with the elder's mother and Mi'kmaq heritage. letting go of the instilled shame of being indigenous goes hand in hand with letting go of the instilled shame of being queer
Fancy Dance: this movie isn't about being queer, it's about the ongoing murder of indigenous woman and girls, and it's also a beautiful road trip film between an aunt and her niece, the former of whom is sure her sister is dead but unwilling to face it and to destroy her niece's innocence. Lily Gladstone plays the lead, who's also a lesbian, which is just a choice that works really well for the movie even if it's not the focal point (available on Apple+ TV and however you access movies, but would recommend throwing this one some views if you have access to official streaming)
Honey Moccasin: a 1998 movie i watched at another film festival (this time online), it's anarchic, it's a comedy, it's a thriller, it's got musical beats, it weaves in the intricacies of exploring Native identity and Queer identity, it's a surreal story about a few things, one of which include focus on a "closeted drag queen." it's a movie that beats against conventional film-making to create something not beholden to tropes and clichés forced upon narratives about being Native
