Jeff Barnaby Obituary

Jeff Barnaby was a Canadian Indigenous filmmaker best known for his films Rhymes For Young Ghouls and Blood Quantum.

Barnaby was born in Listuguj, Quebec, on a Mi’kmaq reserve. He graduated from the film programmes at both Dawson College and Concordia University.

Barnaby made his feature film debut in 2013 with Rhymes for Young Ghouls. The film was a satire of Canada’s contentious Residential School system wrapped in a revenge story set on the fictional Red Crow reserve.

Jeff Barnaby transformed Canadian indigenous filmmaking by employing genre film tropes to explore themes and issues affecting Canada’s beleaguered First Nations communities. This included incorporating magic realism, body horror, and sci-fi elements into his Indigenous storylines.

Barnaby wrote, directed, and edited all of his films as a craftsman, beginning with his first short film, From Cherry English. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004.

Barnaby died on Thursday, October 13, 2022, in Montreal after a year-long battle with cancer, his publicist confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.