| Luk'Luk'I | |
| Director: | Wayne Wapeemukwa |
| Producer: | Matt Drake Spencer Hahn |
| Starring: | Angel Gates Joe Buffalo Ken Harrower Eric Buurman Angela Dawson |
| Music: | Daniel Ross |
| Cinematography: | Jeremy Cox |
| Studio: | Sound & Colour Thousand Plateaus |
| Runtime: | 89 minutes |
| Country: | Canada |
| Language: | English |
Luk'Luk'I (pronounced "lucklucky") is a Canadian drama film, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.[1] The feature directorial debut of Wayne Wapeemukwa, the film is an expansion of his earlier short film Luk'Luk'I: Mother, which premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.[2]
Set in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympics, the film centres on five residents of the poverty-stricken neighbourhood. The cast includes Angel Gates, Joe Buffalo, Ken Harrower, Eric Buurman and Angela Dawson. The actors participated directly in writing the screenplay, using their own real-life experiences – including Harrower's experience as a gay man with a disability and Dawson's experience as local underground culture figure "Rollergirl" – to inform and create their characters' storylines.[3]
The film's title refers to the Coast Salish name for the Downtown Eastside.[4] [5]
At TIFF, the film won the award for Best Canadian First Feature Film.[6] In December, TIFF named the film to its annual Canada's Top Ten list of the ten best Canadian films.[7]
Wapeemukwa also won the Directors Guild of Canada's DGC Discovery Award.[8]
At the 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival, Luk'Luk'I won the "Best BC Film Award".[9]