BIG SKY, BIG MOMENTS
Our World Premiere
Our world premiere for Saints and Warriors took place at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana—and it was everything I didn’t know I needed. A week surrounded by filmmakers from all over the world, all coming together not just to showcase our work, but to live, breathe, and obsess over stories. It was like filmmaker summer camp—minus the bunk beds, plus good coffee.
Words From The Director
I flew in from Vancouver and didn’t even make it past the baggage carousel before running into Chris Auchter, who just so happens to be the only other Haida documentary filmmaker in the world with a feature in the festival. What are the odds? Turns out, we both made films that touched on the stand at Aathlii Gwaii—Chris through his masterful vérité film The Stand, and me, briefly, in Saints and Warriors as part of our community’s broader history of resistance.
His film was breathtaking. Watching it in a packed theatre, seeing our Haida Elders on screen, and suddenly—there’s my mom. A teenager. Getting arrested while defending our land. I wasn’t prepared for that. The lump in my throat stayed there for the whole screening. It’s hard to describe how surreal and deeply meaningful it was to sit with another Haida filmmaker, in Montana of all places, and witness our community’s legacy come to life from two different lenses.
Chris and I ended up spending a lot of time together those couple days, and I hope this is just the beginning of future collaborations between us.
The Saints and Warriors screening itself was a beautiful blur. Out of more than 150 films in the festival, ours was one of just a handful that sold out. That meant a lot, especially considering we were telling a story rooted in a remote island community, to a theatre full of folks who may have never even heard of Haida Gwaii. The Q&A after the screening was full of thoughtful, moving questions—some that made me reflect on parts of the film I hadn’t considered in a while. It reminded me that even though this story is personal, specific, and deeply Haida, there’s something universal about it too—about pride, community, and fighting to protect what matters most.
Michael (my producer) and I also got to visit Arlee High School on the Flathead Reservation for a special screening. I wasn’t sure how a bunch of teens would respond to a documentary about sovereignty, basketball, and aging athletes—but they were locked in. They laughed in the right places, leaned forward during the tense ones, and had amazing questions. Seeing the film land with another Indigenous community, especially a younger audience, felt like the kind of full-circle moment I’ll never forget.
To top it all off, we were joined by our assistant editor Darian Lung, who flew down to celebrate with us. And yes—I ended up doing a radio interview at ESPN Missoula, which might be the most unexpected sentence I’ve written this year. Somehow, it made perfect sense: a Haida basketball doc playing on a sports network in Montana. Who knew?
All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better world premiere. Montana showed up for us, and I left feeling inspired, deeply proud, and even more committed to telling stories like this. We’ve only just begun.