Posts Tagged ‘Tracey Deer’

BEANS: 4 STARS. “a breakout performance, in a piece of important, vital cinema.”

“Beans,” the directorial debut from “Anne with an E” and “Mohawk Girls” producer Tracey Deer is the story of Tekehentahkhwa, a 12-year-old Mohawk girl, nicknamed Beans, during the violent 78-day standoff between two Mohawk communities and government forces during the 1990 Oka Crisis.

The film begins with a scene that sets the theme for the film. Tekehentahkhwa (Kiawentiio) and her mom Lily (Rainbow Dickerson) are meeting with the head mistress of a tony Montreal school called the Queen Heights Academy. When the interviewer has a tough time pronouncing her name, Tekehentahkhwa, eager to please, blurts out that everyone calls her Beans. It’s the first indication of the subversion of the tween’s true identity, but it won’t be the last in this riveting study of a girl finding her place in the world.

In the larger world a stand-off is brewing between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka, Quebec who plan on building a golf course on sacred burial grounds. News footage from the 1990 conflict fills in the details but Deer tells her story from the POV of Beans and her family as they cope with racism, a dwindling food supply and the influx of police and barbed-wire fencing in their community.

Refused service by local grocers and terrorized by angry mobs—“If you don’t want us your land, don’t come to ours!”—Beans, her sister Ruby (Violah Beauvais) and mother make their way home, only to be attacked by raging townsfolk who hurl rocks at their car.

Beans falls in with a group of older kids, led by April (Paulina Alexis), a tough talking teenager who teaches the younger girl how to access her fighting spirit and survive amid the crisis.

“Beans” is the story of a youngster forced by circumstance to grow up fast. She absorbs influences from her parents, who have differing views on her educational needs, her new friends, crisis and, above all, uses her intuition to become the person she needs to be. Deer ties things together with a closing shot that simply and beautifully captures the full extent of Tekehentahkhwa’s journey.

The search for identity is not a new concept in coming-of-age films but the First Nations context here, combined with Kiawentiio’s breakout performance, make “Beans” important, vital cinema.

POP LIFE: AN IN DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH ‘LEGENDBORN” Author Tracy Deonn!

This week on the “Pop Life” we meet Tracy Deonn, the North Carolina author of the bestselling YA novel “Legendborn.” Called “a modern day twist on Arthurian legend” it follows a Black teenage girl who discovers a secret historically white magic society while attending a UNC-Chapel Hill residential pre-college program.

Then, the “Pop Life” panel, Mohawk film director and producer Tracey Deer, Publicity Director at HarperCollins Canada Lauren Morocco and rising country singer, songwriter, and musician Madison Kozak convene to talk about the various ways to pitch your creative ideas.

Watch the whole thing HERE!

Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.

Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting and Bob Geldof, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.