Jeff Barnaby, the Mi’gmaq and Canadian director behind horror films told from an Indigenous perspective, died on October 13 after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 46. Barnaby’s representatives confirmed the news in a statement to The Globe and Mail. “Jeff Barnaby redefined Indigenous cinema by injecting elements of magical realism, body horror, and sci-fi into Indigenous stories,†the statement read. “He was uncompromising in his views on Indigenous identity, Indigenous storytelling and authenticity. He never hesitated or backed down from his point of view, and remained authentic throughout his career.â€
Born in 1976 in the Mi’gmaq community of Listuguj, he settled in Montreal after earning a degree in film production from Concordia University in 2004. Barnaby went on to direct a number of critically acclaimed short films, including the Jutra Award–nominated The Colony and the Genie-nominated File Under Miscellaneous before premiering his debut feature film, Rhymes for Young Ghouls, in 2013. Set on a fictional Mi’gmaq reservation, the work is a fiery indictment of the Canadian residential-school system, a government program that forcefully separated Indigenous children from their families and placed them in violent boarding schools; it also launched the career of Reservation Dogs’ Devery Jacobs. His John Carpenter–inspired sophomore feature, the zombie-fueled critique of settler colonialism Blood Quantum (2019), was nominated for ten Canadian Screen Awards and won six. That film was his last.