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IMDbPro

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers

  • Actress
  • Writer
  • Director
IMDbProStarmeter
Top 5,000682
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Three Pines: Season 1
Play trailer2:05
Three Pines (2022– )
8 Videos
16 Photos
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer and actor. She is a member of the Kainai First Nation (Blood Tribe, Blackfoot Confederacy) as well as Sámi from Norway.

Her short documentary Bihttos was included in the 2015 TIFF Top Ten Shorts and was commissioned for the imagineNATIVE Embargo Collective. Bihttos won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the Seattle International Film Festival.

With The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, she made her feature co-directorial debut (alongside Kathleen Hepburn), as well as starring-in and co-writing. Taking its title from an essay by Cree poet Billy-Ray Belcourt, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, is based on a true-chance encounter between Tailfeathers and another Indigenous woman. Premiering at the Berlinale in 2019, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open received the Toronto Film Critics Association and Vancouver Film Critics Circle' awards for Best Canadian Feature Film. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open was also nominated for six Canadian Screen Awards, and Tailfeathers and Hepburn received the CSAs for best direction and best original screenplay.

Hailed as one of "... the most important film[s] about addiction to date ..." by the Vancouver International Film Festival, her latest feature documentary Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is an intimate portrait of survival, love and the collective work of healing in the Kainai First Nation in Southern Alberta, a Blackfoot community facing the impacts of substance use and a drug-poisoning epidemic, where community members active in addiction and recovery, first responders and medical professionals implement harm reduction to save lives. Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy premiered at the 2021 Hot Docs International Documentary Festival and received a Roger's Audience Choice Award as well as the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award for Tailfeathers. Since it's premiere, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy and Tailfeathers have received the Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director at DOXA 2021, the Audience Choice Award for a Canadian Documentary at the 2021 Calgary International Film Festival, the Co-winner, Inspiring Voices & Perspectives Feature Film Award at Cinéfest Sudbury, and the 2022 Canadian Screen Award for the Ted Rogers Best Canadian Feature Documentary.

Her acting credits include roles in; Jeff Barnaby's Blood Quantum, Canadian Screen Award winning performance in Danis Goulet's Night Raiders, Canadian Screen Award nominated performance in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Canadian Screen Award winning performance in Rachel Talalay's Unclaimed, the soon to be released Stellar by Darlene Naponse, and the upcoming Amazon/Left Bank Pictures series Three Pines.

In 2018 Elle-Máijá was the Sundance Film Institute's Merata Mita Film Fellow and is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Lab and the Hot Docs Accelerator Lab. Elle-Máijá is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, the Director's Guild of Canada, UBCP/ACTRA, and the Documentary Organization of Canada.
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  • Awards

Photos16

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Olivia Steele Falconer in On the Farm (2016)
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers in On the Farm (2016)
Marci T. House and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers in On the Farm (2016)
Marci T. House, Sarah Strange, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and Olivia Steele Falconer in On the Farm (2016)
Tantoo Cardinal and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers in On the Farm (2016)
Rossif Sutherland and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers in Three Pines (2022)
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers in Three Pines (2022)
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers in Three Pines (2022)
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Leo Awards 2016, "On the Farm" Producer Rupert Harvey and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Leo Awards 2016, Cast and Crew from "On the Farm", Sara Canning, Dennis Foon, Rupert Harvey, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Lara Mazur, Michael Blundell

Known for

Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and Violet Nelson in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019)
The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
6.9
  • Áila
  • 2019
Jessica Matten in A Red Girl's Reasoning (2012)
A Red Girl's Reasoning
6.9
Short
  • Nelly
  • News Reporter V.O.
  • 2012
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy (2021)
Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
8.6
  • Writer
  • 2021
Night Raiders (2021)
Night Raiders
5.3
  • Niska
  • 2021

Credits

Edit
IMDbPro

Actress

  • Alfred Molina in Three Pines (2022)
    Three Pines
  • Stellar (2022)
    Stellar
  • Night Raiders (2021)
    Night Raiders
  • 2020 Canadian Screen Awards for Documentary and Factual
    • (voice)
  • 2020 Canadian Screen Awards for Broadcast News, Sports Programming, Documentary and Factual (2020)
    2020 Canadian Screen Awards for Broadcast News, Sports Programming, Documentary and Factual
    • (voice)
  • Kiowa Gordon in Blood Quantum (2019)
    Blood Quantum
  • Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and Violet Nelson in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019)
    The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
  • Patrick Gallagher and Sara Canning in On the Farm (2016)
    On the Farm
    • (as Maija Tailfeathers)
  • Luke Perry and Emmanuelle Vaugier in Love in Paradise (2016)
    Love in Paradise
  • Miali Buscemi and Malaya Qaunirq Chapman in The Embargo Project (2015)
    The Embargo Project
  • Not Indian Enough (2014)
    Not Indian Enough
    • (as Maiji Tailfeathers)
  • Rez Carz (2014)
    Rez Carz
    • (voice, as Elle-Maija Tailfeathers)
  • Jessica Matten in A Red Girl's Reasoning (2012)
    A Red Girl's Reasoning
  • White Indians Walking
    • (as Maija Tailfeathers)
  • Bloodland (2011)
    Bloodland
    • (as Elle-Maija Tailfeathers)

Writer

  • Until Branches Bend (2022)
    Until Branches Bend
  • Precious Leader Woman (2021)
    Precious Leader Woman
  • Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy (2021)
    Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
  • Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and Violet Nelson in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019)
    The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
  • Queen of the Oil Patch (2018)
    Queen of the Oil Patch
  • Miali Buscemi and Malaya Qaunirq Chapman in The Embargo Project (2015)
    The Embargo Project
    • (segment Bihttos: Rebel)
  • Rebel (2014)
    Rebel
  • Jessica Matten in A Red Girl's Reasoning (2012)
    A Red Girl's Reasoning
  • Bloodland (2011)
    Bloodland
    • (as Elle-Maija Tailfeathers)

Director

  • Little Bird
    • Post-production
  • Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy (2021)
    Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy
  • Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and Violet Nelson in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (2019)
    The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open
  • c'sna?m: The city before the city (2017)
    c'sna?m: The city before the city
  • Miali Buscemi and Malaya Qaunirq Chapman in The Embargo Project (2015)
    The Embargo Project
    • (segment Bihttos: Rebel)
  • Rebel (2014)
    Rebel
    • (as Elle-Maija Tailfeathers)
  • Jessica Matten in A Red Girl's Reasoning (2012)
    A Red Girl's Reasoning
  • Bloodland (2011)
    Bloodland
    • (as Elle-Maija Tailfeathers)

Videos9

Director Reel
Demo Reel 4:30
Director Reel
Official Trailer
Trailer 1:58
Official Trailer
Teaser
Trailer 1:12
Teaser
Trailer [OV]
Trailer 1:26
Trailer [OV]
Night Raiders
Trailer 1:58
Night Raiders
Blood Quantum
Trailer 1:38
Blood Quantum
Three Pines: Season 1
Trailer 2:05
Three Pines: Season 1
Howard & Betty
Trailer 2:19
Howard & Betty
On The Farm
Trailer 2:21
On The Farm

Personal details

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    • website

Did you know

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  • Trivia
    Invited to join the director's branch of AMPAS in 2020.
    • Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers was born in Cardston, Canada.

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