I'm Jonathan Kapart and welcome to Kapart.

Fancy Dance is a family drama and crime thriller set on a Seneca reservation.

It stars Lily Gladstone who plays Jack's, a native woman looking for her missing sister while caring for

her niece, Roqui.

This riveting movie was written and directed by Erica Tremblay, who has called it a love letter to Native communities.

But it's also a story that's been called sadly necessary.

In this conversation first recorded for Washington Post live on November 29th.

Gladstone and Tremblay talk about the themes of indifference and invisibility in the

film, the importance of bringing native stories to bigger platforms and why, despite its great acclaim

and reviews, no film studio has bought Fancy Dance. It is great to talk with both of you because the film is really terrific.

And Lille, I'm going to start with you briefly tell me what

fancy dance is what's it about and and what that phrase means for Native

communities.

Fancy Dance is about the love of the 12th for knees.

And I apologize for getting reverberations,

so I might take me a second to answer.

Yeah, it's the story of matrilineal love

of cultural perseverance and of

searching for a missing sister, which is unfortunately way too common in our communities.

The word fancy dance itself to native communities is going to mean

resilience, going to mean joy,

it's going to mean cultural perpetuity.

...