Original-Cin TIFF Chat: Kaniehtiio Horn on Directing Her Movie Seeds, and Ritual Torture
By Jim Slotek
“What I really want to do is direct,” goes the cliché about actors.
But Kaniehtiio Horn is making her directing AND feature script-writing debut with her starring turn in the off-beat Toronto International Film Festival thriller Seeds (which has its first public screening Friday, Sept. 6 at noon). And she says directing was the last thing on her mind.
“The thing is, I wrote it as a vehicle for me to be a lead,” says Horn, who is known to fans of TV’s Letterkenny as the tough-talking Tanis (who got to throw around occasional epithets in Mohawk).
Kaniehtiio Horn turning the tables in Seeds.
“I didn’t want to direct it initially. I was looking for somebody. I asked a friend, Vanessa Matsui (Ghost BFF), and she was busy. I asked (her Letterkenny colleague) Jacob Tierney for some advice. And he said ‘Why don’t you direct it yourself?’
“And I said ‘But that’s so much f---ing work!’
“But it worked out because I discovered I’m not a control freak. I actually like collaborating.” She did this primarily with her director of photography Jonathan Cliff, who she says was also a sounding board for her acting in certain tense scenes.
Horn may have been ambivalent about directing, but like many of the characters she’s played, she’s direct.
In Seeds, she plays Ziggy, a Kanienkehaka woman working in the city as an online influencer, sprinkling her peppy online commentary with boastful shout-outs to her people. (Add in a fantasy life where she’s mentored by the host of a reality-murder-investigation series, played by Graham Greene).
But when her mother goes on vacation, Ziggy is called back to the Rez to house-sit and cat-sit. It’s an invitation that takes a dark turn when a goon for a multinational agri-business takes on the mission of stealing the family’s uniquely cultivated store of seeds by any means necessary.
When things turn violent, and people she loves start getting hurt, Seeds becomes a revenge movie, one that sees Ziggy reaching back into her people’s bad-ass past, including ritual torture of the enemy.
I mention that the torture scenes made me uncomfortable, not for the obvious reasons, but because I’d just finished reading Mark Bourrie’s book Crosses in the Sky, about Father Brébeuf, the martyred Jesuit whose missionary interference helped doom the Hurons in their war with the Iroquois. And the explicit depictions of torture in that book (by all sides in First Nation skirmishes) were mirrored on the screen.
“That’s the one that inspired me, that book about Brebeuf!” Horn says. “Nice catch.
“I truly read the torture account. The Jesuits were writing what they witnessed. That whole torture scene, just the way they described my people speaking about it, I was like, ‘Wow, we were such crazy assholes!’ But there’s a huge part of me that understands where they were coming from.”
That callback to hard-core Indigenous practices came late in her scriptwriting process.
“Honestly what I was taught when I was in theatre school was always keep it simple. So, the simple idea was basically a home invasion film. And from there on I started layering in things. It all started with a home invasion, ‘What is the thing that she’s protecting?’ And then it was like, wouldn’t it be funny if it was, like, corn beads and squash seeds?”
As for the “Indigenous influencer” part, Horn says, “I think what interested me about the idea of influencing was I truly had no idea about it, I just thought it was ridiculous thing, a very new thing.
“Mohawks are entrepreneurs. If there’s a way to make money, we’re going do it. I didn’t want to make her an actress, I wanted to kind of make fun of it. And I still think it’s funny.”
As for Ziggy’s life in the big city, she says, “For her the city was more of an escape, which I can relate to. Sometimes I’ll be home (in Kahnawake) for a few months, and then it’s like, ‘I need to get out of here. I need to go out and be anonymous in the city.’ It can be comforting for a little bit but then it can get quite lonely.
“Also my rez, I can only speak for myself, but it’s 15 minutes to get to downtown Montreal from Kahnawake. I’m not in a fly-in community. It’s kind of special because it’s such a community-oriented place. But then I can leave and go to the Bell Centre, and watch a huge concert after supper and sleep in my bed at night.”
Whatever is next for Horn, who already has an arm’s length of credits, may be decided by what happens with Seeds at TIFF.
“Acting is never going to leave. I love that medium, I love being able to embody a character. But I definitely am excited to see where this takes me.
“I want to show the world that I can be a storyteller as well. I want to put my voice out there, and I’m proud it’s starting with Seeds. I know it’s not a perfect film, but I didn’t want to make a perfect film, just one that’s fun to watch.”