All-Aboriginal television drama set to air

We've come a long way since film-makers made western movies and hired Italian guys to play the Indians.

If you have any doubts that this is true, all you have to do is tune in to APTN on Nov. 10 to see for yourself.

That's when the first episode of the new dramatic series Moccasin Flats will air. The show, which takes place in a neighborhood in north central Regina, is more than just another television program. It is the first dramatic television show in Canada to be created, written, produced and performed by Aboriginal people.

In addition to airing on APTN, the series has been picked up by Showcase, which will broadcast it starting in the spring of 2004.

The series, which paints a brutally realistic picture of what it is to be young and Aboriginal growing up in the inner city, is a continuation of a story that began in the short film by the same name produced in Regina in the summer of 2002. That film was the result of a training project co-ordinated by Big Soul Productions as part of the company's repRezentin' program, designed to give youth in communities across the country a chance to get training and first-hand experience working in the film and television industry.

The film was produced using 40 local Aboriginal youth both in front of and behind the cameras, none of who had any experience in the industry before joining the project.

The Moccasin Flats film was screened at film festivals across North America to rave reviews, and now it has become a television series.

Jennifer Podemski and Laura J. Milliken of Big Soul Productions are the creators of Moccasin Flats. When they went to Regina last summer to prepare for the film, they were approaching it as they had the other repRezentin' projects they'd already completed. But it didn't take either of them long to realize this project wasn't anything like the ones they had done before.

"It began as one of our training programs, which usually are what we call one-offs, like a project that you do and you move onto the next program," Podemski said. "But I did know, and so did Laura ... I knew in my heart when we were on set the first day, or when we were even in rehearsals, I knew that this was bigger than we thought. I knew that the talent and the integrity and the foundations were so strong... I kept saying to myself at the time, this is priceless. What we have here is just, it's like a volcano. This is going to explode. You can't express it really. It was just something that felt way too big for the little shoes it was in at the time."

While each of the final films created through the repRezentin' project had been screened at film festivals, Podemski and Milliken knew when Moccasin Flats was accepted into the prestigious Sundance Film Festival that they had something big. By the time the film screened at the Toronto Film Festival, they'd already started shopping the concept around as a potential television series.

"Before we were even finished filming the short film, Randy Redroad (the film's director) and our [director of photography Matt Phillips], they both said 'You know, there's something really, really special here. And you guys could probably get a whole series out of this,'" Milliken said. "And of course at the time, I'm thinking, 'Yeah, right. Drama in Canada? That's ridiculous.' Not so much that I didn't believe in the project, but it's such a difficult industry and Canadian drama is in serious jeopardy. So I thought, 'Well, how can the little guy with no dramatic experience and inexperienced actors pull something like that off when Canadian drama is suffering so badly?' But then pitch sessions started to come up at festivals like ImageNATIVE. And Jen said 'Let's go talk to Showcase.' And it just grew, somehow."

Moccasin Flats the series will look much like Moccasin Flats the film did, with all of the original cast reprising their roles on the small screen, including Justin Toto, Kristin Friday, Candy Fox, Danna Henderson, Matew Strongeagle, Nathan Strongeagle and Joanna Anaquod. A few additional cast members have been added-Gordon Tootoosis, Tantoo Cardinal, Michelle Thrush and Andrea Menard-to give the show some star power. About 10 crew members from the film have come on board for the series.

Although the series has yet to air, Milliken is optimistic the show will go on for a second season.

"I think it will, for sure, be more than the six episodes. It's going to shock Canadian audiences. It's going to be one of those things that people talk about. And I think the reason is, first of all, because the cast is so amazing. And the stories are great. And this is a world in Canada that most people don't know about... Canadians are still so uneducated about Aboriginal people and who we are and what we do. And so it's sort of like through the drama itself. They're going to see what it's really like. But they're also going to say, 'OK, well, this is also made by Native people. That's pretty cool.' We're controlling our own voice in the media for once. And I think all of these things all together, and also because it looks great and we have really strong support in the industry for this project as well, that I think it will continue," Milliken said.

She said the subject matter is scary to delve into.

"It's going to be hard to tell stories like this, for anybody. Because probably, at some point, somebody will be misrepresented or feel like they have been misrepresented. But that's a chance you're taking with media all the time, whether it's journalism or film-making or music or whatever. Somebody will feel that somewhere along the line a story wasn't told right. But I just feel that it's art, it's subjective and that everyone's going to make up their own mind. But we certainly did try the best we could.

"And it's a hard thing to portray because it is brutal. It's a really tough neighborhood. And if we had actually told it as close to life as possible it would have been so brutal hat people would have said there's no way that actually happens. There's no way that there's a place that exists like that. So we actually, we held back a little bit."

Both Milliken and Podemski are hopeful that as an all-Aboriginal production, Moccasin Flats will open some doors to other Aboriginal people wanting to break into the industry.

"I hope that we continue to create more producers. Because without an Aboriginal producer it's very, very difficult to keep the project Aboriginal. So I hope it encourages Native people, young or old, it doesn't matter, to produce dramatic content. And I don't think it matters what the story is. I just think we need a lot more Native producers out there," Podemski said.