Deadwyler and Greyeyes Stand and Defend Their Land 40 Acres

Imagine being in a dystopian world after a series of plagues and wars have left society in ruins.  On a farm in the middle of nowhere, The Freeman family is thriving and surviving with their own spices, while repelling  the occasional raiding party. But what good is surviving the end of the world if it means turning against  humanity?

Former soldier Hailey (Danielle Deadwyler) made that choice years ago, believing isolation was the only way to protect her family. She and Galen (Michael Greyeyes) fled and trained their family to fight – even kill to protect one another from harm. Until Hailey’s eldest Emanuel (Kataem O’Connor)  meets a young woman (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) in the forest, where his need for human contact could place the whole family in jeopardy.

Writer/director R.T. Thorne infuses this narrative with contemporary relevance and an inescapable historical metaphor, placing Black and Indigenous characters at the center of a story about people defending their land from those who would kill them for it without a second thought.His attention to detail with fight scenes and shooting in the dark and the fog is impressive for a first time filmmaker. Setting in celluloid a time in our history where African American farmers who settled in 1875 in rural Canada after the first Civil War were given land and  two hundred years later trying to defend and maintain those same territories is admirable and necessary

Deadwyler is magnificent and Greyeyes finally gets to sink his teeth into a role highlighting his strengths as a charismatic badass and deadpan comic player. It warmed my heart to witness a film built around Indigenous, Aboriginal and Black actors in a genre usually and most often reserved for white characters. At a post Q&A following the Friday night TIFF premiere, Greyeyes passionately stated, “…cinema holds lots of spaces and a Black and Indigenous relationship is something I have never seen .  We wanted to create a relationship that felt lived and that they didn’t lose the thing that brought them together.

40 Acres is a bit of a small crawl, but the message is resoundingly clear and distinct with action sequences within the first 15 minutes that will keep audiences riveted and intrigued to how it all plays out.