Night Raiders (2021 film)

In the year 2044, Canada is militarily occupied by the "Southern Nation" (or "Regime"). Major cities lie in ruins with much of the population living in squalor and poverty. The Regime uses drones for both military and propaganda purposes including tracking dissidents and food drops. Parents are coerced into sending their children to military academies where they are trained and indoctrinated into loyal soldiers.

Niska and her eleven year old daughter Waseese are forced to abandoned their improvised bus home after a drone discovers their dwelling. Waseese also suffers a serious leg injury after stepping on a leg trap. Despite their injuries, mother and daughter manage to travel by canoe to a wartorn city. After evading drones and Regime soldiers, the two find shelter with Niska's friend Roberta, who attempts to treat Waseese's injury.

With Waseese's condition deteriorating, Niska makes the painful decision to surrender her daughter to the Regime. Waseese is sent to a military academy where she and other children endure brutal training, beatings and solitary confinement. She is also renamed Elizabeth. Following an escape attempt, Waseese is talent-spotted by a recruiter, who intends to send her to the elite Emerson Academy.

Ten months later, Niska obtains help from a man named Randy, who obtains false identification for them to infiltrate the Regime's academy and rescue Waseese. During the rescue attempt, Niska is captured by a group of Cree, who have been conducting secret night-time raids to rescue their kidnapped children from the academy. The female Cree leader Ida tells Niska about a Cree prophecy of a stranger coming from the north to lead them to a place called Bigstone. Ida believes that Niska is the prophesied stranger who would lead their children to safety. However, other members of the tribe including Leo disagree.

Niska later returns to the city with Leo where the Regime orders a mandatory evacuation of the population. They manage to find Roberta and join civilians being evacuated on a bus. Following a struggle, Niska and Leo manage to escape Regime forces but Roberta is killed by her son, who has been brainwashed into a soldier. Realizing the danger of the indoctrination process, Niska convinces Ida and Leo to help rescue her daughter in return for leading the tribe's children to safety in the north.

With the help of the hacker Charlier, Niska and Leo infiltrate Waseese's academy. They managed to free Waseese and several children but Leo stays behind to make a last stand against the Regime soldiers. Regime forces lay siege to the Cree camp with soldiers and drones. However, Waseese uses her psychic powers to hijack the drones, causing the soldiers to flee. A soldier attempts to kill Waseese but Niska shields her daughter and is fatally wounded. In the epilogue, the narrator identifies Waseese as the prophesied guardian whom her mother Niska brought to them.

• Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers as Niska
• Brooklyn Letexier-Hart as Waseese
• Alex Tarrant as Leo
• Amanda Plummer as Roberta
• Violet Nelson as Somonis
• Gail Maurice as Ida

The film, a coproduction of companies from Canada and New Zealand, is executive produced by Taika Waititi.[4] Goulet has described the film as inspired in part by Alfonso Cuarón's 2006 film Children of Men, as well as by the military response to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016;[4] in addition, the film functions in part as an allegory for the Indian residential school system.[5]

The film was shot in the Toronto area in 2019.[3] It was originally slated for commercial release in 2020, but was postponed to 2021 following production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.[4]

On February 10, 2021, Berlinale announced that the film would have its worldwide premiere at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section, in March 2021.[6][7] It had its Canadian premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival,[8] and is scheduled to screen as the opening film of the 2021 ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival.[9]

It premiered commercially in October 2021, with the widest opening of any film by an indigenous director in Canadian film history.[10] It was later released on TVOD platform in 2022.[11]

The film was mostly well-received by critics, who praised its cast and storytelling.[12][13] However, the film was also criticized for its reliance on tropes of YA fiction.[14] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 82% approval rating, based on 51 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's consensus reads, "Night Raiders strikes grim parallels between its dystopian setting and the present, offering a disturbing reminder that the horrors of the past are often very much still with us."[15]

The film was named to TIFF's annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list for 2021.[16]

• Night Raiders at IMDb