Georgina Lightning

Georgina Lightning was a Canadian First Nations director, screenwriter and actor from the Samson Cree Nation who was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1963. She trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts after settling in Los Angeles in 1990, then found that Hollywood offered Indigenous performers only narrow parts and turned to work behind the camera. She co-founded Tribal Alliance Productions to create opportunities for Indigenous filmmakers. Her first feature, Older than America (2008), a supernatural thriller she wrote, directed and appeared in, grew out of her father's residential school experience, was the first major feature directed by a North American Indigenous woman, and won more than twenty festival awards. Filmmaker Magazine named her one of its 25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2007, and in 2010 she received the White House Project's Epic Award for Emerging Artist. At the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards she was nominated for her supporting role in Trickster. She died in 2026.