In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, actress Kaniehtiio Horn speaks about the lack of leading roles coming her way after successful stints on TV shows like Letterkenny and Reservation Dogs. Kudos to her, then, for going out and doing it herself. Even better, the resulting film, Seeds, which Horn wrote, directed, and stars in, is a low-key charmer, freely mixing hangout comedy, anti-corporate sentiment, and gentle ribs at Reservation life (Horn is Canadian-Mohawk). It’s not all fun and games, though, as the film eventually takes a turn toward darker subject matter. For Indigenous peoples, heritage must sometimes be protected with violence.
Seeds begins with Ziggy (Horn) announcing to her Instagram followers that she’s just become a paid influencer for Nature’s Oath, a seemingly benign multi-national food service corporation (think Monsanto). She’s excited to finally quit juggling multiple gig jobs and focus on her burgeoning Internet fame. These early scenes have Horn speaking directly to the camera, occasionally utilizing a split screen to show the online interface, and she’s a vivacious, winning presence. But no sooner is she preparing her first sponsored post than she is summoned back to the reservation by her cousin, Wiz (Dallas Goldtooth). He needs her help, and assures her that the data connection is strong enough for her to post the daily content required by her contract (spotty reservation Internet access becomes a recurring gag). It becomes clear that Ziggy left for Toronto for a number of reasons, and that her ability to assimilate into off-res life has been bumpy, at best. It’s Wiz who informs Ziggy that Nature’s Oath isn’t exactly on the up and up, and that she’s essentially taking blood money from them and selling out the land and her people. The film doesn’t waste much time on Ziggy’s moral decision; she decides very quickly that she’s done the wrong thing, as a litany of her followers start posting negative comments about the true nature of the company’s bio-engineering and genetic tampering.
Eventually, the other shoe drops. Corporate fixer Drake (Patrick Garrow) shows up, determined to find sacred, ancestral seeds that have been passed down through Ziggy’s family for generations and now sit unprotected in her aunt’s home. Drake enlists amiable reservation doofus Nookie (Dylan Cook) to help him, and begins terrorizing Ziggy just as she’s rekindling things with ex-boyfriend Bandit (Meegwun Fairbrother). It’s here that the film switches gears from loose, observational humor to something resembling a thriller. Ziggy has ominous visions where the specter of actor Graham Greene (ostensibly playing himself) warns her of impending catastrophe, and Drake escalates things considerably when he attacks someone close to Ziggy. The tonal rupture doesn’t totally work; the film is more successful in its earlier iteration as a lark than it is as a suspense piece, and sudden jolts of extreme violence feel especially jarring following the brevity of the early going. Formally, the film is what might be generously called “tele-visual,” despite occasional bursts of lovely landscape photography. Still, Horn’s performance ultimately carries the day, and her final act of retribution against the forces aligned against her and her tribe have a sort of righteous fury that’s wholly invigorating. As a writer, it’s hard not to argue that Horn packs too much into her film’s fairly brief runtime, but as a bold declaration of purpose, Seeds is a modest success. Hopefully her first film isn’t her last.
Published as part if TIFF 2024 — Dispatch 2.
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