THEY FIGHT CRIME! THEY SOLVE MYSTERIES! THEY…wait, no, this isn’t that kind of film.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Last year one of my favorite Heartland entries was Fancy Dance, a Native-focused drama co-written and directed by Erica Tremblay, who’d worked on the most excellent TV series Reservation Dogs (11/10, among the best ever) and Dark Winds (whither season 3?). Its star Lily Gladstone had appeared in a few Rez Dogs episodes, but commanded wider attention as the Oscar-nominated costar of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, where she had to put up with being surrounded by powerfully attention-grabbing white men, and so did her character.

Once an artist emerges from such overshadowing as an independent force on their own terms, it’s absolutely cool seeing them use their newfound fame to encourage and enable other storytellers to come forward and take a shot at reaching a wider audience. Just as Taika Waititi “co-created” Rez Dogs and directed its pilot, thereby launching it with an extra little push (though the show was obviously, lovingly Sterlin Harjo’s baby), I braked while reading Heartland’s Narrative Feature roster when I spotted the listing for Executive Producer Lily Gladstone affixed to Jazzy, an adorable coming-of-age drama that premiered at Tribeca Festival last June and might’ve gotten overlooked among Heartland’s voluminous offerings if not for her name standing out to me.

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