The Lily Gladstone-starring feature “Fancy Dance” finally has a home at Apple. The studio announced the film will be released under their Apple Original Films banner. The move comes on the heels of Gladstone’s Oscar-nomination for Best Lead Actress in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” also released under Apple.
“Our film ‘Fancy Dance’ has found the perfect home with Apple, and I am thrilled to share this beautiful story of two Seneca-Cayuga women with a global audience.” said director Erica Tremblay in a statement. “As a Native American filmmaker, seeing my community included in the rich tapestry of cinema is a dream come true.” Tremblay co-wrote the film alongside Miciana Alise.
The film follows Gladstone as Jax, a young woman raising her niece Roki (Isabel Delroy-Olson), in the wake of Jax’s sister’s disappearance. But when Jax is threatened with losing custody of Roki the pair go on the run.
Buying the movie has been a hard-fought process for Tremblay and Gladstone. During an awards appearance by Gladstone in December she said the film contained “the best work I feel I’ve ever done.”
Gladstone went on to how the film highlighted the story of missing and murdered indigenous women, had “the greatest, most visionary, most committed director of my life.” Many in the audience assumed the actress was talking about Scorsese’s feature until she mentioned the film had no distribution. “Y’all thought I was talking about the other one,” she joked.
Tremblay herself spoke to TheWrap the same month about her own frustrations in trying to get the film purchased. The thing that’s just been toughest is to grapple with is the fact that, if we don’t find the right distribution partner, the film won’t find an audience,” Tremblay told TheWrap. “And, for me, that’s just so sad, because you look at these films that are made on similar topics by non-Native, mostly white, filmmakers, and those find the audience.”
Apple Original Films plans to release “Fancy Dance” in theaters and Apple TV+ sometime later this year.
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