imagineNATIVE 2026 FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW! Proving that there are still edges of the Earth to fall off of is the Canadian outlaw drama Nika & Madison, directed by Eva Thomas, who co-wrote the script with Michael McGowan. Nika (Ellyn Jade), who lives out in the country on tribal land, starts her day by running out into the bush to hunt game. Her cousin, Madison (Star Slade), who is going to university in Toronto, goes out clothes shopping with her classmate, Emma (Tehya Silbermann). Madison lets Emma know she is going back to the reservation for the weekend, a few hours away by bus, to visit Nika and Uncle George (Billy Merasty). She and Nika used to be very close, but fell out of touch after she left. When Madison visits Nika at her cash register job, the reaction she gets is ice-cold. Nika just glowers at Madison over the paperback she is reading, giving her short answers. Madison doesn’t understand why Nika never left the reservation like she did, as she was way too good at school.
“Nika just glowers at Madison over the paperback she is reading, giving her short answers.”
Madison gives up and goes out partying in town, ending up in a bar fight with a bitch who should have known better. Constable Boyd (David Reale), who was called to the scene, offers to give Madison a ride home in his squad car. Nika is called about the bar fight by her bud, Trevor (Dylan Cook), so she goes looking for Madison to make sure she is okay. Tracking Madison’s phone signal, Nika ends up in an empty industrial lot, nowhere near home. When Nika finds Constable Boyd beginning to rape Madison, she brains him good with a blunt instrument. Nika calls for help on the cop’s radio, then gets herself and Madison out of there. The cop ends up in a coma, so Detective Sargent Timmins (Amanda Brugel) and Detective Warhurst (Shawn Doyle) are assigned the case to find out what happened. To protect the girls, Chief Sampson (Gail Maurice) throws up literal roadblocks in the police investigation. Aware of how brutal the system is to indigenous women, Madison and Nika flee into the woods. To outsiders, running makes the pair look guilty, and the world starts to close in around them.
Nika & Madison has one of the most perfect cinematic destinations ever: Nika’s trailer in the woods. This backwoods hideout rivals the boat in The African Queen for places people wish they could be transported to. Even with the figurative dire wolf glaring through the window, there is something eternally peaceful about this shelter from the storm. The moment Jade and Slade arrive at the trailer, everything clicks, with endless possibilities as to how this will play out. It is a fantastic plateau Thomas achieves, as the movie has the sort of welcome to wonderland jolt that runs up your seat. It is bittersweet that this wilderness retreat is already overshadowed by the doom of being pursued relentlessly. However, nothing makes relief sweeter than when all hope is absent.
"…a notable entry in indigenous cinema history."
