THE RAVEN AND THE BULL is about the courageous journey of finding joy and peace, as reflected in the inter-generational bond of two trans Indigenous men, whose lives weave together through land, community and memory.
The dual protagonist journey of Raven (20’s) and Holy Old Man Bull (Uncle) (60’s) follows how each came into themselves as transgender Indigenous people, and how doing so fostered their relationship to one another, and a movement of trans masculine visibility in the larger continent-wide Two Spirit/Indigiqueer community.
The film opens with an audio-visual mosaic of that which has nurtured Raven and Uncle: land, water, and community being together (powwows, marches, festivals). Such vibrance and gayety is pulled back to the more quaint and domicile times of growing up across the West and West Coast; tomboys and eventually lesbians trying to find who they are. Yet the more they found their identity, as Indigenous people, as trans-masculine people, the more intense things became. Being called “it,” having nowhere to go, the fear of having no one. Both pushed through and in time, it seemed like a new spring with Indigiqueer community finding and bringing them in. The gentle, quiet care and intergenerational exchange at one fateful Two Spirit gathering in Montana brought these two spirits full circle. They can both look forward and back, with reassurance that they aren’t, and will never be alone.
Producer - Nils Cowan
Producer - Eleni Ledesma
Consulting Producer - Ciara Lacy
