Director’s Statement

The Burning of Broken Beak is an allegorical story about an indigenous woman confronting the trauma of colonization, but framed in a body horror-fantastical thriller. The film’s antagonist exists in two forms: an admiral from the colonial era of Aotearoa and a contemporary billionaire CEO. Through these twin villains, I wanted to draw a line between the violence of colonization and the unchecked greed of capitalism—two forces that continue to destroy the natural world and the world in general.

I am part Native American and a member of the Choctaw tribe in Oklahoma. When the opportunity arose to make a film in Aotearoa—where my wife and producer, Christie O’Loughlin, is from —I knew I wanted to tell a contemporary story centered on an Indigenous character.

With The Burning of Broken Beak, I set out to create a “popcorn” genre film in the spirit of early Cronenberg—at once visceral, visual, and entertaining—while also crafting a story that itself would serve as a thesis or argument. I wanted the arc of the story to be an encapsulation of an argument: that we must reject modern unchecked greed and return to indigenous wisdom.

As one character says, “We need monsters to scare us and keep the world alive.” The monsters in this film are not simply spectral; they are born from our histories, our systems, and our present choices - these monsters are not the ones we are taught to fear.
-Christian Carroll