Night Raiders, the Indigenous sci-fi thriller marks the feature film directorial debut from award-winning Saskatchewan-born Cree/Métis writer/director, Danis Goulet (Wakening, Barefoot), the film is a Canada / New Zealand co-production, an Indigenous first for the Canadian film industry. Night Raiders is presented in the Panorama section of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.
2043 - in a dystopian future a military occupation controls disenfranchised cities in post-war North America. Children are considered property of the regime which trains them to fight. A desperate Cree woman joins an underground band of vigilantes to infiltrate a State children’s academy and get her daughter back. A parable about the situation of the First Nations, Night Raiders is a female-driven sci-fi drama about resilience, courage and love.
The film stars Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Blood Quantum), Brooklyn Letexier-Hart (Burden of Truth), New Zealand’s Alex Tarrant (Seachange, When We Go to War), Shaun Sipos (Krypton, Dark Matter), and Emmy and Tony Award-winning Amanda Plummer (Hunger Games, Pulp Fiction).
The producers are Paul Barkin (The Colony, Amreeka, Firecrackers) for Alcina Pictures (CA); Tara Woodbury (Transplant, The Underground) for Uno Bravo (CA); Ainsley Gardiner (Boy, Eagle vs Shark, The Breaker Uppers) and Georgina Condor (Cousins, The Breaker Uppers, She Shears) for Miss Conception Films/Whenua Films (NZ); co-produced with Chelsea Winstanley (Jojo Rabbit, Merata: How Mum Decolonized the Screen, What We Do in the Shadows) for Defender Films (NZ). Taika Waititi, Defender Films (NZ) serves as executive producer, as do Lisa Meeches and Kyle Irving of Eagle Vision (CA), Tim White of Southern Light Films (New Zealand) and Noah Segal and Adrian Love of Elevation Pictures (Canada).
The film was developed with support from the Sundance Institute and with assistance from Bell Media’s Harold Greenberg Fund. Produced with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Canada Media Fund, Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit, Ontario Creates, and New Zealand Film Commission, in association with Bell Media’s Crave and CBC Films.
XYZ Films is handling international sales, while Elevation Pictures will distribute the film in Canada.