Ever been dropped off at summer camp as a kid and immediately wanted to go home? What about getting dumped at your grandmother’s farm in another state for your entire three-month vacation? Despite the initial aversion, such trips usually turn out to be memorable and worthwhile experiences. Even if you don’t have Indigenous roots, ARRAY’s new film Frybread Face and Me is pleasantly relatable as we watch young Benny (Keir Tallman) spend his summer with relatives in Arizona, seemingly against his own wishes. There, he meets his cousin, Fry (Charley Hogan).

Indigenous movies and TV shows have come into the spotlight as of late, and Frybread Face and Me is a lovely addition. We recently caught up with writer-director Billy Luther to learn more about his COVID-impacted production and shooting on-location with a Native crew behind the camera.

Write What You Know
Frybread Face and Me Run Time 82 min Language English Studio Netflix, ARRAY Director Billy Luther
Benny’s journey in Frybread Face and Me parallels Luther’s own upbringing, as he would travel from his native California to either Arizona or New Mexico every summer. As he told MovieWeb:

“I just remember all these kids in my class in California had plans for the summer: ‘Hey, we’re going to the beach! We’re doing this and that.’ I’m stuck going back to these deserts where there’s no electricity, no running water. As a writer, as a creator, this is the stuff you want to write about. So I really just dove into it. And I tried to keep Benny the character kind of far away from me; in creating the character, but I had to be honest with myself and truthful. So I just put a lot of myself into the story, into the character.”

After watching Frybread Face and Me in its entirety, it’s easy to see why the title is a perfect fit for Luther’s new film — though it is also a bit of a mouthful:

All my producers were like, ‘Change the title. It’s a tongue twister. Nobody’s gonna get it, nobody’s gonna remember it.’ And I thought, ‘Many people don’t know what frybread [the food] is, outside the Indigenous, native community.’ And there’s no frybread in the film. So that’s a shocker, right?

As Luther also explained to us, his background is mostly in documentaries, which certainly rubs on Frybread Face and Me in wonderfully realistic ways. He opened up about how his past experience impacted the production process: “The entire cast is pretty much non-actors. And I think my doc background really came into play as we were casting because, in documentary, you also want to find an interesting subject to follow and spend time with.”

“But I also wanted these kids to kind of be themselves and not have to think that they were acting,” added Luther. “So all of our rehearsals and auditions were done through Zoom because we were casting during the peak of the pandemic.” He continued:

“So we only had a week to rehearse. And I prayed, when we were on the plane going to Albuquerque, to Santa Fe, where we filmed the movie, I just hoped everybody had chemistry… And the best thing about that was, I think everyone did. But since everybody had been locked up during the pandemic and quarantined at their house, it was kind of everyone’s first time getting together and being among other humans. And that was really what we needed. And then once the actors started getting there, getting to know each other, it just fell into place.”

Indigenous Representation

What’s great and fully representative about Frybread Face and Me is that there’s not only Indigenous people in front of the camera; Luther made sure to include them elsewhere too. He explained:

“We had Navajo crew in all departments, like the art department. So it really felt like you’re at a Navajo home, your Navajo grandmother’s home. So when we had Navajos in all of those departments, it was easier for these actors to feel in a place that felt lived in… So that was a really cool thing. And I think that helped everyone’s performance.”

There’s someone else in Hollywood who’s been instrumental in bringing Indigenous projects to life on the big screen: Oscar winner Taika Waititi, the man who also helped bring the acclaimed indigenous show Reservation Dogs to life, along with his recently released Samoa-set film, Next Goal Wins. Waititi served as execute producer for Frybread Face and Me. Luther explained:

“He came on board early, so he was great to talk to with the script. He would kind of give me feedback here and there. But he was filming Thor: Love and Thunder, so he wasn’t able to come up onto our set during filming. But after, in post-production, when you need help the most, in the editing process, he was there. So it was a really great relationship that we had with him on this film. His support for Indigenous filmmakers is beyond, and he just gets it. He just knows the pulse of Native storytellers, who he gets behind. So I was really honored to have him EP.”

Related: Every Taika Waititi Movie, Ranked

Ava DuVernay and Dark Winds
ARRAY

Another A-lister attached to Frybread Face and Me is Ava DuVernay, through her company ARRAY/ “Having those two powerhouses on my very first film is just a filmmaker’s dream,” said Luther. “Every day I pinch myself, and I’m like, ‘It’s a dream.’ I don’t take it for granted. I worked so hard to get this film made, and there’s so many people that believed in it and the story and myself as a filmmaker, and I think it’s just kind of what we need right now, in these times.” Luther added:

I’ve known Ava for a good 10 years, in the industry. I’ve seen her career just blossoming to be what it is now. And that has been exciting to see. And it was an honor… because Ava, just like Taika, they love to shine a light on small films from underrepresented communities, diverse storytellers. And most of the time, studios and streamers will just pass. But ARRAY and Netflix have this great partnership, and a lot of the films that they bring to Netflix, I’m a huge fan of.”

Related: Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone Shares Message for Film’s Native Audience

When he wasn’t working on Frybread Face and Me very recently, Luther was keeping busy in the writers’ room for AMC’s hit series Dark Winds, dating back to season one. “It’s definitely very different from Frybread Face, but I love writing about relationships, putting humor in the story,” said Luther. “I never thought I’d ever be working on a cop series ever. I don’t really watch them, but now I’m in it. And yeah, they’re based on the books by Tony Hillerman, who has a huge following for those books.” He continued:

But I love it. It’s consistent work. I haven’t given up on nonfiction, but it’s hard to make a living on the docs. It’s not easy. So the great thing about working on television is it’s just consistent. And you meet other writers. My writers’ room consists of some incredible Native writers.

Looking ahead, Luther will continue to use his prior documentary experience to put together yet another Indigenous-represented feature that will surely fill the seats for a number of reasons. “My first documentary, Miss Navajo, premiered at Sundance in 2007. And I didn’t even know I’d be working in documentaries, but I just bought a camera because it was a cheap way to tell a story,” said Luther. “And we’re gonna revisit [Miss Navajo]. I’m writing something based on that now. So there’s going to be a feature that I’m currently developing and I am excited about that one. It’s set in contemporary time, following these young women as they compete in a beauty pageant, from the perspective of Native characters. So yeah, I’m really looking forward to that. It’s the same humor as Frybread.”

In the meantime, you can stream Frybread Face and Me on Netflix below.

Watch on Netflix