Billy Luther grew up living between two tribes and two worlds: his mother is Navajo, his father is Hopi and Laguna Pueblo, and Luther himself was splitting time between urban life and the Native reservation. He grew up in the city, but in the summer he would stay with his Navajo grandmother on the Rez.

After early success with his 2012 documentary Miss Navajo, Luther has for many years been working towards his first narrative feature Frybread Face and Me, a deeply personal reflection of his life on the Rez. In his tender new film, two adolescent Navajo cousins—Benny (Keir Tallman) and Frybread Face (Charley Hogan)—bond during a summer herding sheep on their grandmother’s ranch in Arizona, where they learn more about their family’s past and themselves. Benny and Fry are from two different worlds: the former was raised in the city and the latter in the country surrounded by her culture (Navajo language is featured heavily throughout, both subtitled and not). The film has an all-Native cast and aims to throw away stereotypes and revel in the joys of Native American life.

Frybread Face and Me premiered at SXSW earlier this year, where Letterboxd members like Yujnyc were first introduced to Benny and Fry: “A densely emotional insight to the binary between city and reservation life,” they write. “You fall in love with the main character as they fall in love with their roots. It’s narrated by the present, middle-aged version of the little boy in the movie, giving it a nostalgic and longing feel that wraps around you warmly as you watch.”

With Taika Waititi as executive producer, the film shares the same open and nuanced love for the lives of Native kids as other projects the celebrated New Zealand filmmaker has created, including Boy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Reservation Dogs (the last one co-created with Sterlin Harjo). Both filmmakers will be among the Indigenous storytellers at TIFF this year—Billy Luther with Frybread Face and Waititi with Next Goal Wins. I caught up with Luther during his coming-of-age drama’s first outing, at SXSW back in March.

What inspired you to make Frybread Face and Me?
My background’s been in documentaries for the past fifteen years. I started with Miss Navajo. I always had this story of the experience that I had growing up in San Diego and going off to the reservations for the summers. Being this “city urban Indian”, as they say, and having the experience of going to another place without electricity and running water… It’s where you’re from, and you’re kind of disconnected from your world, your language.

It’s a story about identity because it’s something that I experienced through my life being multi-tribal. My mom is Navajo and my dad is Laguna Pueblo and Hopi, so they’re completely different tribes from each other, different languages, different beliefs. Identity has always been something that I have been questioning, living with and searching for from a young age. I identify as gay. There are no labels on the kids in the film. It’s hinted at but at that age it isn’t defined.

Benny is a bit of an outsider; he plays with dolls (but really they’re action figures!) and he has this obsessive love for Fleetwood Mac. His uncle bullies him and he lives amongst an oppression that demands boys to be hyper-masculine. Can you talk about that aspect of the film?
My experience with that was I wanted Barbies so bad as a kid, but my parents would only buy me GI Joe dolls or action figures. So, I would happily take them outside and play soap opera with them. All my GI Joes were lined up and they were sleeping with each other. It was my state of mind: I would watch nighttime and daytime soap operas. I would just create, and that’s where my storytelling was born. I liked soft, gentle things.

When I would go out to the Rez, my uncles were all bull riders and ranchers and very masculine guys. It just wasn’t me. It was always like, “You’re not a cowboy,” but I never wanted to be a cowboy, you know? The thing about that, too, is my grandmother never judged. She was never like, “Oh, you have to be this way or that way,” and it was always this love that she had.

The film’s really about a young boy discovering himself, and it must have been a challenge finding the young actors. Can you talk about the casting process?
I was casting during peak Covid, so a lot of my casting was through Zoom. It was tough, but we worked with an amazing casting director, Angelique Midthunder. She cast a lot of Native films, but at that time, it was more recent with Reservation Dogs, so she had already had her arms out there searching for kids. When we went with her, it was perfect timing.

We cast Charley Hogan as Frybread Face; she was the first one we cast. Keir came a little later. I liked him because he was so shy and so vulnerable. He was just a little kid that brought it to the audition.

And then back to casting, finding the grandma.
I was really lucky with that because, when I wrote that character, I didn’t have anybody in mind. As we were getting down to our production date, I was like, “I cannot find the right person.” We had so many people read. Miss Navajo, which we filmed in 2005, our main character Crystal Frazier took us to her grandmother’s ranch, and her grandmother [Sarah H. Natani] was a weaver and she was giving classes to non-Natives who were touring the rez. We filmed a scene with her that didn’t make it into the final documentary.

When I thought about it more, I was like, “Wait a minute, I know a weaver, and I know she’s probably the age that I need her to be.” Luckily, we were able to talk to her and she was hesitant at first, because she was like, “Who is this? You want me to be in a movie?” But she was so great. In terms of weaving, that was her livelihood; that’s who she is. I really wanted her to love these children and make it feel believable, like she was these kids’ grandmother, and she understood that, and it was awesome to see.

What is your level of fluency with your Navajo language? Did that inspire you in your filmmaking process?
Benny’s connection with his grandmother is not through language. There’s a disconnect. He doesn’t speak Navajo because he’s multi-tribal. He grew up off the reservation and his parents are from different tribes, so they don’t speak the same language. That was my experience growing up. In all the films that I’ve made, that underlying theme is always language, and that equals identity and culture and your connection to it.

For me, I am not fluent in Navajo, nor am I fluent in Hopi nor Kerosan, which is Laguna Pueblo. On both my father and my mother’s side, the experience was of the boarding schools where the language was taken. You were told not to speak your language or you were punished at these boarding schools. That was a huge part of our history as Natives, because when our families came back from boarding schools, they didn’t teach their kids their language. That’s what I’ve experienced in terms of my filmmaking. Like with Miss Navajo, there was a huge connection of language to my main character.

How did Taika Waititi come on board as your executive producer?
Taika and I have known each other for about twenty years, and he’s been a strong support here with Native American filmmakers like Sterlin Harjo and Blackhorse Lowe. We all have been making films for twenty-something years; finally, we’re able to get these stories told and out there. Taika’s been so helpful in terms of providing feedback and what-not. When the script came, I just asked him and he said okay, and that really helped. He’s pretty great in terms of his thoughts and feedback on scripts and cuts.

Your film has that gentle Native humor and really strong child characters, like Taika’s movies.
A lot of his films have child stars, and the main characters are kids. I think working with him on this was great because he was able to talk over things with me and give me some tips on working with child actors. They always say, with your first film, don’t work with animals or kids, and what did I do? I worked with sheep and dogs and kids. It’s tough, but that’s the story I wanted to tell.

My grandmother was a storyteller in her weaving and her rugs, and Benny doesn’t necessarily understand until later in life what these mean. There’s a line at the end of the film when they’re saying goodbye. In Navajo, his grandmother’s like, “All in time. It will all come to you.”

My family’s Māori grandmother had a similar saying and it’s “mā te wā,” which means “all in good time.” I was about to ask you if you’re an artist, but of course you are because you wove together this beautiful film.
Thank you, yes I am. As much as I try to run away from being an artist, it is true. It’s really special and I can’t wait for the community to see this. There’s a lot of healing that can come from this film in terms of the way we communicate to each other and to our youth. This is a story that is pretty universal; it’s not just Native Americans who are going to enjoy it. Non-natives especially are going to be taken into this rare look inside this world of the Navajo community through Benny.

What is your favorite ’80s movie of all-time?
Starman. You look at the parallels about Starman and you look at this film, and there’s a connection.

I love the thought of being stuck suddenly in the middle of nowhere with only one VHS tape and on it is Starman, and you just watch it over and over.
That’s what happens, right? That’s what happened at our house.

Or a copy of a Taika Waititi movie. What is your favorite Taika Waititi movie of all time?
Wow. It has to be his short film, Two Cars, One Night. Love that one. It’s his greatest piece of work, I think.

What advice would you give to young Native filmmakers or actors striving to make it in the film industry?
Don’t give up. There’s a lot of nos that happen, but there’s a lot of opportunities that come with those nos. Sometimes, you think about being a writer, director or an actor, those flashy roles in film, but we really need more Native filmmakers as editors, as composers, camera people. I’m thinking in terms of the nuances that Navajo language has or gestures and mannerisms, that maybe a non-Navajo editor wouldn’t know or wouldn’t see. I think that that’s huge, and I’m always searching for those people as editors or composers.