Mohawk Girls

Winner of the Best Documentary prize at the ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, Tracey Deer's 2005 documentary Mohawk Girls is a profound portrait of adolescent life. Set on the Kahnawake reserve, Deer follows three teen girls on the cusp of adulthood. While many of their struggles are familiar ones, the trio also carry the weight of a question imposed upon them by colonialism: Should they cross the Mercier Bridge and leave the reserve for opportunities in the "outside world" - and in doing so risk losing their heritage and even their Mohawk status - or should they stay? Framed through Deer's own coming-of-age experiences a decade before, Mohawk Girls is both deeply intimate and powerfully political. Its resonance with audiences led to the doc becoming a scripted TV series on APTN. (Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival)