Beans

Tracey Deer (2020, Canada, 92 min.) + post-film discussion

Beans is a 12-year-old girl caught in between–in between childhood and adolescence, in between her parents’ differing visions for her life, and in between her identity as a member of the Mohawk nation and a Canadian. This last split hasn’t been one she’s had to think about much before, but in the summer of 1990 all of that will change.

Based on the true events of the Oka crisis in Quebec, a 78-day standoff between the Mohawk community and Canadian police and armed forces, Tracey Deer’s immensely personal Beans highlights just how much challenges to indigenous communities and denigration of their lands and resources continues to present day. The Oka crisis started as a struggle over plans to expand a golf course into sacred burial lands of the Mohawk nation that had not been recognized by the Canadian government as deserving of protected status. But it spiraled into questions of identity, belonging, and otherness, exposing deep fissures in Quebec society over race and indigenity. Deer’s film unflinchlingly looks at the consequences of these battles in the lives of one girl and her family, trying to navigate that harrowing summer and trying to figure out how to feel safe and belonging in their own community. Featuring fierce and bold performances by Kiawentiio as Beans and Rainbow Dickerson as her mother, this film is not to be missed!

Presented in partnership with the Centre Film Fest