The Cinematheque

In Person: Shelley Niro

A Cree-Chinese girl struggles to keep her dreams from being extinguished in this affecting period drama from celebrated Kanyen’kehá:ka (Mohawk) multimedia artist Shelley Niro, subject of a major touring retrospective currently on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Adapted from Cree playwright Kenneth T. Williams’s one-woman play, itself based on the life of retired Canadian senator Lillian Eva Quan Dyck, Café Daughter follows young Yvette Wong, a whip-smart student coming of age in small-town 1960s Saskatchewan, who has been taught to conceal her Indigeneity in a bid to pass as fully Chinese, the lesser persecuted minority. A death in the family compels Yvette to embark on a discrimination-laden path to medical school, while a taboo friendship with a Mi’kmaq classmate sows the seeds of Indigenous pride. Niro, whose art practice routinely involves film, crafts a soul-stirring picture that honours the extraordinary resolve of its inspiration—a neurosurgeon before her appointment to the Senate.

Audience Choice Feature Award
imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival 2023

Join us at 6:30 pm for a reception before the film, followed by a post-screening panel discussion with Niro and Elder Larry Grant, moderated by Melissa Karmen Lee, CEO of the Chinese Canadian Museum.