Sydney Freeland is on a long journey to complete the LeBron James-produced basketball-themed feature film for Netflix, with the main goal of showing real local life on screen.
But Freeland told a Toronto Film Festival audience Monday that finding Indigenous basketball players was easier said than done, at least at first.
“Netflix bought the movie, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, let’s go find these people now.'” They have to be out there. They had to be there,” Freeland recalled. She insists on having herself represented correctly on screen, in part because she knows what it’s like to be excluded from screens big and small as a Navajo trans woman.
“I come from multiple marginalized communities, and I’m used to being portrayed in films and on television,” she told the TIFF panel. Ultimately, finding Indigenous actors who could play basketball was easier than she initially feared.
“The talent is there, they’re just not given the opportunity. We know the talent is there. We have to find them,” Freeland said. Ultimately, she went from 5,000 submissions for the 10 Aboriginal athlete positions to 250 and then to 32 top contenders.
Vreeland believes that if you cast a wide net, it’s possible to authentically cast your characters to tell culturally accurate stories. “We like to say we caught lightning in a bottle. But if you catch lightning in a bottle again and again, are you just giving a chance to people who didn’t have a chance before?” she asked.
And Monday, seed Director Kaniehtiio Horn has spoken of her intention to fill her Indigenous horror films with actors from her community after years of being stereotyped in Hollywood.
“In the last 20 years, I’ve seen a change in how we’re represented and how we’re taken seriously,” said Horn, who directed the film after playing Ms. Deer on FX. reservation dog and Tanis on Hulu. letterkennysaid at TIFF.
“I accepted that I would never be Aboriginal,” recalls Horne, who graduated from drama school at age 19. But that changed when she starred in the late Jeff Barnaby’s 2007 short colony.
“The audition I went into said ‘Dark, curvy Aboriginal women take the stage.'” They wanted to meet me. So I did it and he (Barnaby) said, ‘Yeah, that would be great.’ I got the part,” Horn recalled. But Horne and Freeland agree that improving Indigenous representation in TV series and movies means casting Indigenous actors in the right roles.
“If I were auditioning to be a Cheyenne warrior from the 1600s, I would be like, look, guys, I don’t look like that,” Horn argued. At the same time, the push and efforts to get more local talent on screen and behind the scenes, including as directors and producers, must continue.
For Freeland, that means coaching Rezbauer I’m not going to be your typical white guy from the city who finds himself in a small town telling a basketball team what to do, like Gene Hackman in “Gene Hackman” Indian. “We have to have people from the community as coaches to help them,” she added.
As a result, Indigenous Canadian actor Jessica Marten was chosen to play the Warriors coach, whose character returns home after playing professional basketball. “Our motto is to tell a story from the inside out, and that sets the tone,” Freeland said.
The Toronto Film Festival runs until September 15th.
