Like so many people of Aboriginal heritage in Canada, the lead characters in Tkaronto – a local feature that makes its world premiere at imagineNATIVE this weekend – feel torn between two cultures and at home in neither one. An artist struggling to find a way to connect with her Ojibway roots, Jolene (Melanie McLaren) feels she's reached that difficult juncture when “we stop pointing to our parents and saying, ‘Hey, they're Aboriginal,' and start asking, ‘How am I Aboriginal?'”

It's a question that crops up in many works at imagineNATIVE, Toronto's annual festival of film and media works by indigenous people. Tkaronto (***; Oct. 21, 6:30pm, Royal, 608 College) handles it with an unusual amount of poise and insight. The quality of writer-director Shane Belcourt's feature debut – named after our city's original Mohawk name – is all the more remarkable when you consider that it was made in six months on a measly budget.

Based on Belcourt's experience as the son of a Metis father, the movie portrays the crises of Jolene and Ray (Duane Murray), two thirtysomethings who can't figure out a way to square up their urban lifestyles and material ambitions with what an elder (played by Lorne Cardinal) calls “blood memory.” But for all of Tkaronto's heavy themes, the film has a sense of lightness that makes it one of the year's most appealing local indie features.

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