CANADIAN FILM & TELEVISION HALL OF FAME Tina Keeper sows the seeds to her own success

BY AMBER BERNARD

THE WORD “KISTIKAN” MEANS “GARDEN”

IN CREE, a name that came to award-winning actor, producer and former member of Parliament Tina Keeper in a dream.

“I was telling my cousin about this dream: I was in a garden and there were beautiful tulips, and the soil was so rich and it looked so great,” Keeper tells Playback. “My cousin then said to me, ‘Well, now you have to stay in that garden.’ And that’s how the production company’s name came about.”

That company is Winnipeg-based Kistikan Pictures, which partnered with Buffalo Gal Pictures in 2010 and focuses on producing Indigenous films and television. Its film productions have included Road of Iniquity by Mark F. Ennis and Through Black Spruce by Don McKellar, which was also produced by Serendipity Point Films. Kistikan Pictures’ series have included APTN drama Cashing In and CTV Comedy Channel original Acting Good, which premiered last fall. Keeper is a producer on the series alongside Jennifer Beasley of Buffalo Gal Pictures. She also plays the family matriarch on the show, which is loosely based on the life of Anishinaabe star and co-creator Paul Rabliauskas.

“Matriarch” is a moniker that is part of Keeper’s fabric. Producer Nicole Robertson, who has worked alongside Keeper for decades, says she’s known as a matriarch and Kokum (“grandmother” in Cree).

“Tina is incredibly passionate about her community, and it drives her work,” says Robertson. “She’s also a grandmother and matriarch herself, and I think that gives her the power to be intentional and uber-focused on what needs to be told in terms of the story.”

Keeper has also acted in series such as CBC’s North of 60 (Alberta Filmworks) and films including Falls Around Her (The Film Farm, Baswewe Films). She’s dedicated her entire life’s work to making space in the media and in politics for Indigenous peoples and their stories, paying her homage to her family and community, the Norway House Cree Nation in northern Manitoba.

“I’ve always been interested in our own stories,” Keeper says. “I came from a background of family who were already doing the work. I knew where I came from, and that we had our own history, our own aesthetics and our own authority.”

Keeper describes her education and early career as a time when Indigenous people and their narratives didn’t quite have their own place just yet. “I loved the study of theatre and the arts, but I knew there was no place for me in it as a young Indigenous Cree woman.”

It wasn’t until her late 20s when she landed one of her most notable roles, as an RCMP officer on North of 60, for which she won a Gemini Award. “By the time I was asked to audition for North of 60, it was during a time where an opportunity like this could never be thought of.”

Even after landing the high-profile role on the hit series, Keeper remembers the “condescending” barriers that came with it.

“I was a trained and proficient actress, but people would still ask me, ‘How did you land that part?’ and ‘Did you ever study acting?’ This was very reflective of how Canadians didn’t understand Indigenous people,” she says, adding: “Nonetheless we had really good producers on the show, where they created safe spaces for us. They had culture and community knowledge keepers they worked with directly. This made Indigenous actors feel comfortable, but I also think it contributed to the success of the show.”

Phyllis Laing, president and CEO of Buffalo Gal Pictures, says Keeper is the most passionate person she knows. “Tina’s knowledge of her communities and her desire to create space for Indigenous stories is just infectious. I couldn’t think of a better person to take that role as a producer and create a company that can truly grow… I believe that the garden is flourishing and will continue to.”

Keeper has a strong sense of culture and spirituality that guides her work in the industry and has led her to great success.

“My job as a producer is to protect our ways and stories, and my job is also to say no: ‘No, this is going to be different.’ ‘No, that’s not how this project is going to proceed,’” she says. “That’s how I came to take my job as a producer. Like,

‘No, we are going to be different and we’re going to listen to knowledge keepers.’ Creating a safe place for my culture and people in the industry is important to me.”

Keeper temporarily retired from the screen and served as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Churchill, Man., from 2006 to 2008, seeing a need from the government to commit to the assertion of Indigenous peoples. Since 2010, the government’s commitment to advance Indigenous storytellers and producers has been helpful in creating intentional space for Indigenous stories, directors and producers, she says.

She believes giving Indigenous people sovereignty over their own narratives in the media, in a way that allows them to access funding and training, is critical because “we have rich cultures and those cultures are distinct and they’re still alive, but so is colonization.”

As a producer, she prides herself on hiring Black, Indigenous and people of colour talent and crew. Manitobashot Acting Good, for instance, had 25 Indigenous key creatives, crew and knowledge keepers. “It’s very important for me to meet targets for inclusivity when it comes to production work and creating content that’s relatable and important for our communities,” she says.

At the same time, the series resonates with a wide audience, adds Buffalo Gal Pictures head Laing. “[Acting Good] follows the community of a northern reserve, but the humour translates well to other nations. Tina is one to watch and things are going to be up-and-coming in the next year or so.”

Keeper says she doesn’t currently have a production slate, noting she’s a small company, which “has been both an intentional, personal choice, and a condition of the industry norms until very recently for Indigenous-owned companies.”

“The untapped market, I think, is still the domestic market,” she says. “It is important for mainstream broadcasters and streamers to produce content. This is our home territory. It should be inundated with Indigenous content, with diverse Indigenous languages, and in English and French.”

Playback’s Canadian Film and Television Hall of Fame was founded in 2007 to recognize extraordinary achievements in the Canadian entertainment industry. Inductees are selected by a jury of their peers.