Documentaries gave Erica Tremblay the nudge to try dramas

To get into features, filmmaker Erica Tremblay first made documentaries.

“I was so grateful to do that, but the whole while I was doing it, I wanted to make things up,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, it’d be much more interesting if this would happen.’”

Making the leap wasn’t easy. Tremblay earned her stripes as a writer and director on “Reservation Dogs,” then pitched an original story for a feature.

Called “Fancy Dance,” it features a Native American woman searching for her sister.

The screenplay was singled out as “one to watch” by film festivals and independent filmmaking groups. Written in 2020, it got funding and was ready to shoot in 2022 – “that’s a quick turnaround in Hollywood,” Tremblay says.

But it really got a boost when Lily Gladstone, an actress Tremblay had worked with on a short subject, signed on. “I just knew from watching all of Lily’s films how talented and wonderfully beautiful she was.”

The two set out to make a small indie film and, in the process, Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” showed up. Gladstone, the film’s star, got more attention than co-star Leonardo DiCaprio and was whispered as a likely Best Actress Oscar nominee.

Before that happened, however, “Fancy Dance” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 20, 2023. It drew raves and afforded Gladstone a one-two punch in the film world.

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Her success in “Flower Moon” gave other Native American-themed films a real boost and helped sell “Fancy Dance” to AppleTV+.

The halo effect has given Tremblay and others hope the interest will continue.

“Seeing Lily on all these red carpets, seeing the success of ‘Reservation Dogs’ and Billy Luther’s film (‘Frybread Face and Me’) popping off at all the festivals…have proven there’s a huge appetite for these stories,” Tremblay says. “I hope that Hollywood walks the walk and keeps the promises they say out loud about inclusion and diverse storytelling.”

“Reservation Dogs,” a series created by Sterlin Harjo, certainly made a big splash on television. Tremblay wrote and directed several episodes of the acclaimed FX series. Even though it had a strong following, Harjo wanted to move on to other things, she says. “The story we set out to tell had been told. I think FX would have continued to make many seasons of that show but I’m really grateful for my time there.”

Among her highlights was a second-season episode in which Bear gets a job on a roofing crew. “Sterlin said, ‘Wipe your female gaze all over it,’” Tremblay recalls. “I loved being on that room with those men telling that very poignant and sensitive version of Native masculinity.”

The series also brought the New York-based director back to Oklahoma and introduced her to the crew she used on “Fancy Dance.”

Now, Tremblay’s eager to make more narrative films. The documentaries, she says, had their place. “They invigorated my passion to be able to write for characters versus sitting and watching a character.”

After a brief run in theaters, “Fancy Dance” will premiere on AppleTV+ June 28.