Seeds

Imparting lessons of Kanienʼkehá:ka food sovereignty within a campy revenge thriller, Kaniehtiio Horn’s feature directorial debut takes viewers on a ride unlike any other. In Seeds, Horn (Alice, Darling) plays Ziggy, a Toronto-based bike courier and budding influencer. Just as she lands a new client, a seed and fertilizer company called Nature’s Oath, and starts making content for them, she’s called back to her community to house sit for her aunt.

Ziggy’s cousin, played by Dallas Goldtooth (Reservation Dogs), imparts a few nuggets of wisdom: to be wary of the seed company, and that creepy things happen around their aunt’s house. As a shadowy figure follows her, Ziggy must protect herself, and her aunt’s cache of seeds.

Already known as a talented film and television actor and producer, Horn flexes her writing and directing skills in this bloody and intelligent thriller that ties together connections to the land and to reproduction. In Ziggy, she has created a layered Indigenous female lead character, motivated by her people’s history, relying on her strengths, and not afraid to get violent.

In addition to seeing Horn lead a film for the first time, we also get Goldtooth in a great comic performance, and legendary actor Graham Greene pulling double duty as a crime show host and an uncle figure to Ziggy who comes alive in her dreams.

KELLY BOUTSALIS

Content advisory: explicit violence, horror, drug use, sexually suggestive scenes, coarse language