Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and reckless adolescence; forced to grow up fast and become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.
With no shortage of Hollywood coming of age stories being churned out on a yearly basis, Director Tracey Deer drew from her own experiences as a young Mohawk girl, to present a very different take. This tale of growing up against the backdrop of a crisis many of us can recall, brings an often under-represented perspective to the big screen, and is a poignant reminder that the racism and discrimination that fueled the conflict at the films core, are still present and in need of much attention today. Beans was the runner-up for the People's Choice Award at TIFF 2020.