Tank Standing Buffalo is a Canadian artist from Calgary, Alberta.[1] He is most noted for his 2023 animated short film MONSTR, which was included in HBO Max's animation anthology Only You: An Animated Shorts Collection.[2]
Of mixed Potawatomi and Black Canadian descent, his mother is a member of the Caldwell First Nation in Southwestern Ontario.[3] He had a troubled childhood, and spent some time in detention as a young offender following a robbery.[4]
His 2020 short film RKLSS centred on his time as a young offender, shedding light in particular on the inhumanity of solitary confinement practices, and premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.[4]
He followed up in 2022 with SAVJ, a prequel film about the childhood experience of being taken into foster care that first set him on the path to his troubled teenage years.[5] The film, which featured Corey Feldman voicing Standing Buffalo's character, premiered at the 2022 Calgary International Film Festival.[6]
MONSTR centred on his experience following his wife's death of a brain aneurysm, when he confronted his inner demons walking in the forest along the British Columbia Coast before taking a year-long apprenticeship with a wood carver.[2] The film premiered as part of HBO Max's Only You in March 2023.[1]
In addition to animation, Standing Buffalo has also worked in sculpture, illustration, tattoo art and tiki mug design.[4]
In May 2023, he was named one of the recipients of the inaugural Jeff Barnaby Grant for emerging indigenous filmmakers from Netflix and the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival.[7]
At the 2023 Calgary International Film Festival, MONSTR won the Devon Bolton Memorial Award for best Alberta short film,[8] and the Audience Choice award for best Alberta short film.[9]