NFB Collection
Mohawk Girls
200553 min 3 secFilm: Documentary
Direction: Tracey Deer
Production: Joanne RobertsonLinda LudwickChristina FonAdam Symansky (National Film Board of Canada)Catherine BainbridgeErnest WebbSally Bochner
Script: Tracey Deer
Produced by Rezolution Pictures International Inc. in co-production with the National Film Board of Canada, with the financial participation of the Film and Television Tax Credit - Gestion SODEC, SODEC - Programmes d'aide aux jeunes créateurs, and The Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, in association with APTN, and with the collaboration of Télé-Québec.
The massive Mercier Bridge looms over the eastern end of the Kahnawake reserve carrying commuters into the city of Montreal. For Amy, Lauren and Felicia, three Mohawk teens living in its shadow, the bridge also serves as a constant reminder of the bustling world just beyond the borders of their tiny community.
Like typical teenagers, all three are wrestling with critical decisions about their futures. But for these girls, there is more at stake. The rules on the reserve can be strict and unforgiving. Move away and you risk losing your credibility, or worse, your rights as a Mohawk. Stay and you forego untold experiences and opportunities in the "outside world."
Like nearly half of the teenagers in Kahnawake, filmmaker Tracey Deer utilized government subsidies to attend private school in Montreal. Vowing never to return, she then left the reserve to attend college in the U.S. Now a graduate of Dartmouth University, she has come home to Kahnawake to play a role in the evolution of her community.
With insight, humour and compassion, Deer takes us inside the lives of these three teenagers as they tackle the same issues of identity, culture and family she faced a decade earlier. Like her, they are outspoken, honest and wise beyond their years.
Shot over two years, and interspersed with home videos from Deer's own adolescence, Mohawk Girls provides a surprising inside look at modern Indigenous youth culture. Deeply emotional yet unsentimental, it reveals the hope, despair, heartache and promise of growing up Indigenous at the beginning of the 21st century.
Availability
Other versions
Subject categories
- Indigenous Peoples in Canada (First Nations and Métis) > Adolescents and Young AdultsCultural IdentityQuébec and OntarioReserves
- Children and Youth > Indigenous Youth
- Indigenous Studies > History/PoliticsIdentity/SocietyIssues and Contemporary Challenges
- Family Studies/Home Economics > Relationships
Credits
- writer
- Tracey Deer
- director
- Tracey Deer
- producer
- Joanne Robertson
- Linda Ludwick
- Christina Fon
- Adam Symansky
- executive producer
- Catherine Bainbridge
- Ernest Webb
- Sally Bochner
- director of photography
- Tracey Deer
- additional camera
- Bill Kerrigan
- Alan Kohl
- Pablo Aravena
- Francis Miquet
- Alexandre Bussière
- Steve Bonspiel
- sound
- Marco Fania
- Lynne Trépanier
- additional sound
- Steve Bonspiel
- Tod Van Dyk
- Lisa Dargensio
- John Dee Delormier
- narration
- Tracey Deer
- editor
- Patricia Tassinari
- additional editing
- Tracey Deer
- Simon Webb
- logging
- Tiffany Deer
- online editing
- Tony Manolikakis
- sound edit
- Mona Laviolette
- sound mix
- Bruno Bélanger
- Mona Laviolette
- original music
- Mona Laviolette
- Linda Ludwick
- accountant
- Linda Ludwick
- producer assistant
- Megan Thorne
- Jacob Kent
- production assistant
- Brian Webb
- post-production assistant
- Jacob Kent
- translation
- Claire Valade
- Natalie Dubois
- Anne-Marie Gauthier
- additional translation
- Sonia Poisson
- dialect coach
- Sonia Poisson
- Danielle Valade
- consultant
- Mike Ryan
- travel arrangements
- Beesum Communications
- unit photographer
- Georges Khayat
- Tiffany Deer
- insurance
- B.F. Lorenzetti
- Lucie Trottier
- audit
- Rapp Hecht Heft
- Raymond Lamoureux
- legal
- Danielle Dicaire