Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Shane lives on an isolated  First Nations reserve in northwestern Ontario. He’s polite, smart, good-looking, hardworking and respectful – everything a teenage boy should be. He even has a pretty girlfriend, Tara. Shane’s moving to Toronto in the fall to start his first year at University. Everything seems perfect… but it’s not. His mother has been severely depressed since his sister’s suicide. And his family has money problems: they’re deeply in debt.  Can he even afford to move to Toronto? And then there’s his relationship with another boy named David that he keeps on the down low. Sometimes Shane wishes it would all just go away.

I’m talking about Fire Song, a new film having its world premier at TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival. The powerful drama is written and directed by filmmaker Adam Garnet Jones, and this is his debut feature. I spoke to him at CIUT. Adam talked about his background, hopelessness, suicide, coming out, the lives of gay youth in an isolated community, Native Child and Family Services, two-spirited people, traditional ideas, Christianity, life on a reserve vs. life in a city, talking circles, healing, his future work… and more!

UPDATE: Adam Garnet Jones’ Fire Song is the winner of imagineNATIVE’s  2015 Air Canada Audience Choice Award.