Winnipeg film Stryker at 61st Venice International Festival

[www.strykerthemovie.com]

A Native arsonist settling the score for Aboriginal Canadians . . .

News and Comment
by Tehaliwaskenhas
Bob Kennedy,Oneida
Copyright
Turtle Island Native Network
http://www.turtleisland.org

World premiere of the 93 minute Winnipeg film Stryker by Noam Gonick, is scheduled for September 11, 2004 at the 61st Venice International Film Festival . . .

Stryker (played by Kyle Henry*) is the story of a brutal turf war between two street gangs in Winnipeg’s North End.

Omar, the mixed-blood leader of the ABS (Asian Bomb Squad), dominates the ’hood with his crew of Filipino enforcers. His nemesis, Mama Ceece, is the girl-thug leader of the Indian Posse. She has just been released from jail and is determined to regain control of her neighbourhood.

“Stryker” is Canadian slang for a prospective gang member.

This film follows one Stryker, a 14-year-old Native arsonist from a northern reserve whose arrival in the city serves as a catalyst in this fierce battle.

Stryker the fourteen-year-old arsonist is an avenging angel – settling the score with a pack of matches as his only weapon. After generations of genocide at the hands of this place we call “Canada”, I saw the surfacing of Native street gangs in Winnipeg as an army of resistance.

It’s the oldest story in Canada, and one which we won’t admit to ourselves – but there is an apartheid in effect here – gasoline sniffing, teenage prostitution, crack use, are all symptoms of this system. Native teens are told how to make it on white middleclass terms, told it’s the
only way to transcend their situation. But away from this evil coercion, within the gang underworld, I found an amazing sense of camaraderie, and a belonging to something pure and raw.

Winnipeg is not only a centre for Native struggles – but also for the rebirth of ancient traditions, like the concept of the “two-spirited people”. These transgendered, intersex individuals were originally revered in pre-colonial
North America, regarded as magically gifted. I see an echo of this in the Native trannie crack whores of the low track.

I hope that young-watching this story will be stirred to push back, and that Native youth watching it will feel as inspired and charged by the experience as many of the cast members were. This film is for street gangs everywhere who are trying to make a world of their own.

Noam Gonick
Script
http://www.strykerthemovie.com

*Kyle Henry (Stryker) is fifteen years old and attends Daniel McIntyre Collegiate in Winnipeg, where he is specializing in the graphic arts program. He lives with his mother, younger siblings and stepfather in the Lord Selkirk Housing Project, in the North End of Winnipeg, where some scenes from the film were shot. His family originally comes from the Roseau River Ojibwe reservation. Hearing about the auditions from his aunt Rachel, he took to the bus downtown to try out. "It was fun, tiring, exciting. I liked everything about shooting the movie, specially meeting Omar – he's a funny guy. The hardest part was running down that snowy riverbank over and over, it was cold and my feet got wet. My favorite part of the movie are the fight scenes."

MORE. . . Read the Script . . .
http://www.turtleisland.org/news/stryker.pdf