This hotly-anticipated Lily Gladstone drama is finally hitting theaters

Before Lily Gladstone’s incredible, star-making turn in Killers of the Flower Moon, the Indigenous nonbinary performer was already making waves for their 2023 Sundance hit, Fancy Dance. Directed and co-written by Indigenous American filmmaker Erica Tremblay in her feature film debut, Fancy Dance wowed audiences last year for its honest, moving depiction of life on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation for Jax (Gladstone) and her niece Roki as they prepare for a powwow.

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Gladstone recently announced that the film will hit theaters (and Apple TV) this June.

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At heart, Fancy Dance is a story about the many challenges Indigenous Americans face in holding on to a cultural heritage that colonization has tried its best to erase. When Gladstone’s Jax kidnaps her niece Roki from her white grandparents and takes the two on a search to find Roki’s mother, viewers understand just how high the stakes are for the family. Set against the backdrop of the rising crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women—many of whose cases never even get logged or reported in official databases—Jax’s struggle to find her lost sister means everything. If she fails to create a home for Roki, she could lose her to the white side of the family and risk letting Roki grow up in an environment that ignores her Indigenous heritage.

“It’s a love letter to our communities,” Tremblay said in a 2023 Washington Post Livestream. “It’s important for us to tackle serious topics that are happening in our communities, but we wanted to ground it in the love and relationship between these two women, and have them circumventing all of these obstacles with love and joy and connection.”