With a sold-out TIFF premiere, a film career is born for this Grade 2 actor from Six Nations, Ont. | CBC News

Keris Hope Hill, the seven-year-old lead in the new film Rosie, is still learning how to read but says she’s been waiting her whole life to play this role. 

Hill, Kanien’kehá:ka of Six Nations of the Grand River, Ont., makes her acting debut in this film set in Montreal about love and misfits and self-acceptance in the 1980s. It premiered in front of a sold-out crowd at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Friday and has its final screening as part of the festival Wednesday evening.

“Keris was a natural,” writer-director Gail Maurice said in an interview over Zoom last week. Maurice shot the film — her first feature-length production — in Hamilton and Montreal in 2021. 

“As a six-year-old, there’s only so much life experience you have. You’re looking for that element. The essence of who Rosie is in the child who auditions and Keris had that. I knew there was a Rosie inside of her.”

Keris plays an orphaned Indigenous girl who’s just lost her mother and is forced to live with her reluctant Aunty Fred — played by Melanie Bray — a starving artist working at an adult video store who can barely make ends meet. 

Rosie soon becomes a member of her aunt’s motley crew of friends who are also society’s outcasts. She sees this new world through her own innocent eyes and there’s an instant connection.

“Fred is an artist and she takes garbage and makes beauty. What I love about Keris’ character, Rosie, is that she’s actually the one that brings the adults together and shows them their true power. She lets Fred believe that she’s capable,” said Maurice.

A province-wide search for their Rosie

Maurice’s team did a search throughout Ontario for the child to play the part. They held auditions on or near First Nations and had self-tapes that came in from all over the province. 

Recalling her audition day, Maurice said Keris was anxiously anticipating whether she had been successful, and took would-be co-star Bray by the hand and asked, “When will we find out? I hope I find out soon. I’ve waited for this my whole life.” 

Filmed during the pandemic with strict mandates to follow, in the middle of a Montreal summer heatwave, Maurice said despite these challenges, they were still able to create a beautiful film they could be proud of with the underlying message that “hardships make us stronger,” she said.

“That’s what the whole theme is about with Rosie and her family.” 

This was Maurice’s first time working with such a young actor. “They play and they’re not self-conscious … [Hill] was a real little professional. She came to set every day. She knew all her lines.” 

TIFF screening a reunion for the cast

The TIFF screening was the first time Keris saw herself on the big screen.

In an interview on Zoom the day before, Keris was doing her best to remain composed with the help of her family. 

“I told my dad about this and well I said, I just don’t think about it, because the more I think about it the more I get stressed out and more nervous. So I just pretend nothing’s happening,” she said. 

At the premiere, she was reunited with the cast for the first time since filming.

Of her cast members and their off-screen chemistry, Keris said, “They were really fun and they were really nice to me. They were almost like family to me. I spent six weeks with them and I had a lot of fun.” 

Although it was the first time Keris acted in a film, she’s hoping it’s only the start of her career – anything to get her out of Grade 2.