ABOUT Elle-MÁIJÁ

Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer, and actor. She is a member of the Kainai First Nation (Blackfoot Confederacy) as well as Sámi from Uŋárja (Nesseby, Norway). She is the daughter of Blackfoot physician and activist Dr. Esther Tailfeathers and Sámi journalist/politician/activist Bjarne Store-Jakobsen. Tailfeathers 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. She maintains deep connections to both of her families, communities, and Indigenous homelands of Kainai and Sápmi. 

Tailfeathers’ feature directorial debut, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, co-written and co-directed with Canadian talent Kathleen Hepburn, garnered several accolades and was picked up for distribution by Ava Duvernay’s ARRAY. Described as “a quiet, tense but stunning film that will stay with you long after watching” (Seana Stevenson, Medium) The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (a title borrowed from an essay of the same name by Billy-Ray Belcourt) premiered at the Berlinale in 2019 and received the Toronto and Vancouver Film Critics Association awards for Best Canadian Film. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open was also nominated for six Canadian Screen Awards; Tailfeathers and Hepburn received the awards for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. 

Hailed as “one of the most important films about addiction to date” (Vancouver International Film Festival), Tailfeathers’ feature documentary Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy, won the 2022 Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary along with the Hot Docs Rogers Audience Award. About the film, CBC Journalist Duncan McCue stated that “Kímmapiiyipitssini is heartbreaking but should be mandatory viewing for policy makers to understand what opioids are doing to families. I raise my hands to Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers for being an unflinching witness to the dreams and struggles of her relatives.”  

More recently she received the 2024 Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction in a Drama Series and 2023 DGC Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement In A Dramatic Series for her directorial work on Crave’s Little Bird limited series created by Jennifer Podemski and Hannah Moscovitch. 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. 

Tailfeathers took home the 2022 Canadian Screen Award for Best Lead Performance by an actress for her role in Danis Goulet's Night Raiders as well as the 2017 Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Dramatic Program for Rachel Talalay’s On the Farm. She was also nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open. Her acting credits also include Amazon's Three Pines based on the acclaimed Detective Gamache books by Louise Penny, Jeff Barnaby's Blood Quantum, Darlene Naponse's Stellar, Melanie Oates' Sweet Angel Baby, the upcoming Netflix series The Abandons from Kurt Sutter, and Sterling Point - the upcoming Amazon MGM series from Megan Park.

An avid reader, Tailfeathers has lent her voice to audiobooks such as The Real Ones by Katherena Vermette, A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter, Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel, Dammed by Brittany Luby, and the Indigenous horror anthology Never Whistle at Night.  

Tailfeathers is an alumni of the Berlinale Talent Lab, the Hot Docs' Doc Accelerator Lab, the CFC/NFB/Ford Foundation Open Immersion Lab, and is a recipient of the Sundance Institute's Merata Mita Fellowship. She is currently a fellow in the TIFF Writers' Studio working on her next narrative feature.  She is a graduate of the University of British Columbia’s First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program as well as Vancouver Film School’s Acting Program.

Tailfeathers has written for publications such as Cinema Scope Magazine, NOW Magazine, Briar Patch Magazine, and Biography: an Interdisciplinary Quarterly. 

Tailfeathers is a member of ACTRA, the DGC, the WGC, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. She is represented by Meridian Artists in Toronto.