‘Night Raiders’ filmmaker Danis Goulet explores colonization through sci-fi lens

Goulet said her parents have long fought for change through their perseverance and their determination.

While writing her new Indigenous sci-fi thriller Night Raiders, Danis Goulet says she approached one broadcaster for funding and walked away with a “tiny example” of the barriers facing Indigenous filmmakers.

It was June 2015, the same month the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its final report, when the broadcaster sent feedback notes to Goulet. They suggested her futuristic story of a Cree woman trying to get her daughter out of a forced-education camp was “exciting” and “propulsive” with great characters.

But they added: “It doesn’t really work as an allegory for residential schools, because priests are no longer beating children and as a country, we’ve moved on from this,’” Goulet recalled in a video interview.

She was “floored” by what they were saying in response to her script.

“It really showed the prevailing attitude that was out there and that these notes were being used by gatekeepers as reasons to either move forward or not with the project.”

The experience further emphasized why the La Ronge, Sask.-raised Cree/Metis writer-director wanted to make Night Raiders, opening in 80 locations Friday in theatres across Canada.

Elevation Pictures says Night Raiders will have the widest theatrical opening ever for an Indigenous Canadian filmmaker — a record previously held by Zacharias Kunuk’s Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, which played 36 locations. Goulet and the Canada Media Fund’s Made/Nous program also plan to screen the film in northern Indigenous communities.

Elle-Maija Tailfeathers stars as Niska, who teams up with Cree vigilantes to rescue her daughter and other children from a state-run military academy.