Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
Filmmaker, Actor
Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer and actor from the Kainai First Nation (Blackfoot Confederacy) and Sámi from Uŋárja (Nesseby, Norway).
Elle-Máijá lives on the ancestral lands of the Anishiinaabeg, Anishininewuk, Dakota Oyate, Denesuline and Nehethowuk Nations, as well as the homelands of the Red River Métis, in Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Her feature The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (co-written and co-directed with Kathleen Hepburn) premiered at the Berlinale in 2019 and went on to earn numerous awards, including Best Canadian Film from both the Toronto and Vancouver Film Critics Associations and Canadian Screen Awards for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Her documentary Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy received the 2022 Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary and the Hot Docs Rogers Audience Award for its powerful exploration of addiction and community healing.
Elle-Máijá won the 2024 Canadian Screen Award and the 2023 DGC Award for directing Crave’s Little Bird. Her television directing credits also include CTV / Crave’s Acting Good, the CW’s Sherlock and Daughter and second-unit directing on Crave’s Thunder Bay.
As an actor, she has earned multiple Canadian Screen Awards, including for Night Raiders and On the Farm.
Elle-Máijá is an alum of the Berlinale Talent Lab, the Hot Docs’ Doc Accelerator Lab and the CFC / NFB / Ford Foundation Open Immersion Lab. She is a graduate of UBC’s First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program and Vancouver Film School’s acting program, a recipient of the Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita Fellowship and currently a TIFF Writers’ Studio fellow developing her next narrative feature.