Jazzy Director Morrisa Maltz On How An Actor’s Personal Experience Creates Organic Representation On Screen
In the follow up to her award-winning film The Unknown Country, filmmaker Morrisa Maltz wanted to capture the joys and heartbreaks of childhood friendship through the lens of her goddaughter Jasmine Bearkiller Shangreaux. Shangreaux, known as Jazzy, made her acting debut alongside Lily Gladstone in The Unknown Country in 2021 and went on to be nominated for both a Gotham and Spirit Award, so it was no wonder Shangreux was thrilled to partner up with her godmother and Gladstone again for the semi-autobiographical film Jazzy. The film premiered at this year’s Tribeca Festival and it captured the challenges Jazzy navigates while growing up with her peers in South Dakota.
Maltz didn’t have to look far for inspiration for her film Jazzy as her goddaughter seemingly provided the script through their day to day interactions. “When Jazzy was sharing her stories with me about school, her friendships, and what was happening to her at school, they made sense to me as an adult,” Maltz told me. “I either remembered going through stuff like that, or have experiences like that as an adult.”
Often falling through the cracks within filmmaking are films and stories told through a child’s perspective that also successfully resonate with adult audiences. Maltz gave me insight into how she accomplished this. “If we give value to what [kids] are going through, it will be relatable to adults,” she said, with Shangreaux agreeing, “Hopefully they will find this movie relatable to their childhood.”
Syriah Fool Head Means, Shangreaux’s real-life friend and co-star in the film, echoed this sentiment: “I hope that they can understand that child problems are problems too.”
Maltz’s preceding film The Unknown Country had a heavy Native American influence. While her films are distinctive in giving a voice to Native Americans, Maltz explained that she only sets out to create stories. The characters are influenced by the actors who lend their experience and discernment to the creation of the script, which leads to a more organic form of representation. “Me and [Syriah] would rephrase our lines, so we would say it in our words to make it more what we would say, to make it more relatable to ourselves and others,” Shangreaux explained when it came to the creative freedom Maltz gave them.
Representation in and of itself is a challenging feat in the entertainment industry. Gladstone has been paving the way for Native American representation in films. Shangreaux credits Gladstone as the reason she joined the drama club at her school and for her planned continuation in acting. “I want to continue acting and Lily is one of the reasons why. Lily is really nice and kind and I had so much fun acting with her,” she shared. “She knows a lot about acting and I can go up to her whenever I need advice.”
Shangreaux, now 12 years old, was only 6 years old when the film started production, providing a perfect portrait of growing up from a young girl into teenage-hood. Maltz revealed the film wrapped just a week and a half before its premiere at Tribeca, which is a triumphant achievement. Now it’s a waiting game to see if the film gets picked up by a distributor.
