Honey Moccasin

The first of its kind in Canada made by an Aboriginal filmmaker, “Honey Moccasin” is set on the fictional Grand Pine Indian Reservation (aka “Reservation X”) and employs a hybrid pastiche of styles that depicts the rivalry between two bars, the Smoking Moccasin and the Inukshuk Cafe, the tale of closeted drag queen/powwow clothing thief Zachery John (illy merasty), and the travails of the crusading investigator/storyteller Honey Moccasin (Tantoo Cardinal). An irreverent parody of familiar narrative strategies, “Honey Moccasin” forges an oppositional aesthetic via its reappropriation of the conventions of melodrama, performance art, cable access, and a “whodunit” style to investigate notions of authenticity, cultural identity, gender roles, and the articulation of contemporary native North American experiences.