’We’re aren’t native people, we are just people’

Based on Edeet Ravel’s young adult novel of the same name, it centres on Fern’s attempts to live on her own after her mom suddenly dies. She pretends to be 19 and lands a job as a janitor at a decrepit apartment building. She lives rentfree and gets food from a second job at a restaurant. After finding a dog-eared financial-advice book at one of the houses her mother cleaned, she becomes obsessed with becoming a millionaire, convinced it’s just a matter of living frugal and saving money.

It’s a challenging role in a film that delves into issues of poverty and abuse. Imajyn, who is in Grade 11 at Bishop Carroll, took two months off to shoot the film during a particularly frigid spring in Montreal.

“I had 10-hour days and I still had school work on top of that,” she says. “I had a tutor. It wasn’t hard to remember my lines, it was hard to keep my energy up. At the end of the day I was a zombie. At the end of the day I couldn’t even smile, even if I was happy. My face was just tired. I couldn’t do it.”

Thrush now admits she was worried her daughter wouldn’t be up to the task, having only played smaller roles in the past. But mixing strength, stubbornness and vulnerability, Imajyn’s remarkable performance anchors the film. Director Von Carolsfeld has a knack for discovering young talent. Her 2002 feature debut, Marion Bridge, starred a young Ellen Page, who called Imajyn before filming began for an hour-long pep talk.

But it turns out, the 15-year-old was a natural.

“She’s got really good instincts,” says Thrush. “I was watching the monitor and thought, ‘Oh my God, she is so present and in the moment and responding and doing all the things it takes to be a good actor.’ As we watched, the whole crew was amazed. The producer said, ‘ You can’t teach an actor what she knows.’ “

Both Imajyn and her younger sister, Indica, are currently participating in Making Treaty 7, an interdisciplinary project that tells the story of the creation of Alberta from the perspective of the First Nations. Thrush, who is Cree, costars and co-directs the piece. In the summer of 2014, Imajyn joined her mother on a 10-day journey into the Arctic with Emma Thompson on a Greenpeace project.

While The Saver calls for a young aboriginal girl in the lead role, Imajyn says what she appreciated most about The Saver was that it didn’t dwell on her Cree background.

“It has native actors, but I don’t talk about my culture,” Imajyn says. “We aren’t native people, we are just people. That’s what I liked the most, that I could just play a teenage girl and it doesn’t have to be about going to the reserve.”

“I think it was quite revolutionary in the script writing,” Thrush says. “As native actors, we’ve been waiting for those roles to come along. And she just kicked ass.”