EXCLUSIVE: New York-based sales company Visit Films has acquired world rights to the Canadian comedy-drama Hey Viktor!, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this week.
Pic is written and directed by indigenous actor Cody Lightning, who also stars. The plot is a semi-meta narrative, following Lightning, who rose to prominence as Little Viktor in 1998’s Smoke Signals. Recently he has been forced to move to northern Alberta in Western Canada. However, he still believes himself to be famous— even though the only parts he gets these days are porn and fracking commercials. But when Lightning learns his wife and kids are leaving him for a younger, more successful actor, he decides it’s time to quit messing around and make his masterpiece— writing, directing, and starring in Smoke Signals 2: Still Smoking.
A documentary crew follows Cody on his journey around the Indigenous world— re-uniting the original cast, borrowing money from arms dealers, and realizing his vision just in time to realize his vision was bad.
Pic features Lightning alongside Hannah Cheesman and Simon Baker. Producers are Samuel Miller, Sara Corry, and Kyle Thomas.
“We made this movie for us first. We wanted to make a movie that felt like the rez I know— raunchy jokes, insane antics, but also healing and redemption through community,” Lightning said. “A movie that would make every kid on the rez feel like they could go grab a camera and make a bullshit movie with their friends. Indigenous people are the funniest people on the planet, and we wanna bring that rez humor to every corner of the world. And that’s exactly what Visit Films is gonna do.”
Visit President Ryan Kampe added: “We like to think we have a good sense of humor but Lightning clearly has a better one, which is why it is so important that he has told his story in this way. Indigenous filmmaking has many facets and Hey Viktor! is a brilliant dissection of fame and objectification as rarely told in such a raw (and entertaining way). Global audiences should be excited that this film is coming their direction.”
