Sundance 2023: ‘Fancy Dance’ Directed by Erica Tremblay

U.S. Dramatic Competition

This is a perfect Sundance film. Regional, authentically true to its roots, it also sounds great, from the Cherokee conversation spoken with total ease and subtitled for English speaking non-Cherokees to the beat of the drum and the music accompanying our two protagonists as they seek their sister and mother.

Since her sister’s disappearance, Jax (Lily Gladstone) has cared for her niece Roki (the luminous Isabel Deroy-Olson) by scraping by on the Seneca-Cayuga Reservation in Oklahoma. Every spare minute goes into finding her missing sister while also helping Roki prepare for an upcoming powwow. At the risk of losing custody to Jax’s father, Frank (Shea Whigham), the pair hit the road and scour the backcountry to track down Roki’s mother in time for the powwow. What begins as a search gradually turns into a far deeper investigation into the complexities and contradictions of Indigenous women moving through a colonized world and at the mercy of a failed justice system.

Jax (Lily Gladstone) and Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson)

This debut fiction feature demonstrates the talent of Erica Tremblay, an American writer and director from the Seneca-Cayuga Nation. We cast a new eye upon the land and the characters who make up the Cherokee nation. (It was filmed and supported by the Cherokee nation. Erica Tremblay recently worked as an executive story editor on Reservation Dogs at FX, where she directed her 1st TV episode. Together with Sterlin Harjo, she developed a series adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Yellowbird (2014) for Paramount+. She was an executive story editor on Dark Winds (2022), produced by George R.R. Martin and Robert Redford. Her feature project Fancy Dance (2023) was accepted into the 2021 Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs. In 2021, she was awarded the Walter Bernstein Screenwriting Fellowship, the Maja Kristin Directing Fellowship, the SFFILM Rainin Grant and the Lynn Shelton of a Certain Age Grant. Her short film Little Chief (2020) premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was included on IndieWire’s top-10 list of must-see short films at the festival. In addition to writing and directing, she’s also studying her indigenous language.

As the sister and her niece make their way through their journey, the harshness of Jax and the kleptomania of Roki transform into understandable traits, especially for Roki who sees shoplifting as a normal adaptation to being constantly short of money. As for Jax, her dykish behavior which elicits disrespect from some men is a shield for her which hides her totally unconditional dedication to family, except when calling her brother, the sheriff, negligent and uncaring about tracking down their sister who has gone missing.

Tremblay’s unflinching exploration of marginalization uses a mystery narrative as a springboard for an oblique coming-of-age story, lovingly and luminously enacted by Gladstone and Deroy-Olson. Tremblay’s juxtaposition of settler violence against the strength of Indigenous communities offers a nuanced account of the human costs of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic and the possibilities of healing for those left behind.

Fancy Dance was produced by four deeply engaged producers: Tommy Oliverwhose film 1982 premiered at Sundance in 2013 and who is here this year with three films, Fancy Dance, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project andYoung. Wild. Free.; longtime programmer for indigenous programming since Sundance first championed the genre N. Bird Runningwater; Forest Whitaker producer of 34 films including this year’s Sundance film To Live and Die and Live and 2013 Sundance great Fruitvale Station; and Heather Rae, born on October 1, 1966 in Venice, California, USA and already producer of 42 films including Mosquito y Mari (Sundance 2012) and Tommy Oliver’s 1982(Sundance 2013). Others are Deidre Backs recipient of the 2021 Sundance Institute Mark Silverman honor as a Sundance Creative Producing Lab fellow and a 2022 Women at Sundance fellow; Nina Yang Bongiovi (30 producer credits), Dylan Brodie (18 credits), two relative newcomers Charlotte Koh, Robert Grigsby Wilson and the writer director herself Erica Tremblay.

While Sundance has morphed over its nearly 40 years from a showcase of small indie regional Americana into a Hollywood hunting ground and showcase of those whose arcs began there but have now made it to the heights, from budgets of $1 million and less to the $30–50 million dollar range, this film is a tribute to all that Robert Redford strove to achieve. It is a classic.