Honouring Indigenous Filmmakers – Day 4
by Staff
(June 18, 2020 – Toronto, ON) Our series of profiles for National Indigenous History Month continues with a group of highly talented actors that have found ways to do more than step in front of the cameras. From Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario, today we look at the careers of Tina Keeper, Julian Black Antelope and Michelle Latimer.
A member of the Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba, Tina Keeper grew up in Winnipeg. She completed the acting program at the University of Winnipeg while working on a double major in History and Theatre. She is probably best known for her lead role of RCMP officer Michelle Kenidi on North of 60. She was nominated for Gemini Awards in 1994, 1995 and 1996 and in 1997 she finally won a Gemini for Best Actress in a Continuing Series for her work in North of 60. Involved in a variety of social issues, she was elected to Parliament in the 2006 federal election as the Liberal Party representative for Churchill, Manitoba, but lost her seat in the federal election of 2008. More recently Tina Keeper appeared in Through Black Spruce and Falls Around Her in 2018. She was also a Producer on Through Black Spruce. She had previously starred in and was a Producer on the series Cashing In.
Julian Black Antelope is of Irish and First nation’s decent. His career on-camera began in 2004 when he landed a key role on the DreamWorks/TNT six part mini-series Into The West alongside Graham Greene. Since 2008 he has written, directed, produced and/or edited a number of independent short films and video documentaries. A Producer on the 2019 feature Harpoon, Julian Black Antelope is best known for his role as Darrien Tailfeathers on the series Blackstone.
Michelle Latimer is an Algonquin/Métis filmmaker, actor and curator. She graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree in theatre performance from Montréal’s Concordia University in 1997. Her 2014 short The Underground screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the best short film award at imagineNATIVE. In 2018, she was awarded a Field of Vision Filmmaker Fellowship, which led to the creation of the short film Nuuca – an exploration of how extractive industries exacerbate rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls. Nuuca premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival before screening in competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and the Berlinale Generation 14+ program. In 2008 she founded her own production company, Streel Films in Toronto.
Northernstars is published in Toronto. We acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and that the city and surrounding area is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
