Movie Rez Ball shows why Indigenous stories are best told by Indigenous people

"There is no white saviour in the film. The strength comes from within," director Sydney Freeland said of her feature film Rez Ball after its world premierat the Toronto International Film Festival this week. Of all the films at the festival, this is the one I wanted to watch the most. 

TIFF doesn't traditionally have a long list of sports-related movies, but I heard the buzz about Rez Ball, co-written by Freeland with Sterlin Harjo(creator of Reservation Dogs). Rez Ball is a Netflix production and boasts LeBron James as one of the producers. 

This story takes place on a Native Indian Reserve in Diné (Navajo) country in New Mexico. It follows a boys' basketball team at Chuska high school. While the story is fictional, it gives us a look into the real culture of sports within Native American and Indigenous communities. There aren't professional Indigenous teams in those regions so high school sports become robust places of growth and development. 

The main actors, all Native American and/or Indigenous, are compelling and love this movie. In fact, at the Q&A afterward, it was easy to see that although they may be from different nations and communities across the U.S. and Canada, they were deeply connected because of the tradition of storytelling and because their identities were respected and amplified. 

Some might find it hard to believe that in the year 2024 we still don't see a lot of feature films by Indigenous creatives. I'm not talking about films made about Indigenous experiences; I mean with Indigenous directors whose lens into these stories is unmatched. 

Dallas Soonias is a Cree and Ojibwe volleyball player who also happens to be a brilliant film director. He recently called the play-by-play for volleyball during