Indigenous filmmaker Bretten Hannam’s latest film Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts) is a deeply personal journey over a decade in the making. A follow-up to his breakthrough feature Wildhood, At the Place of Ghosts blends horror, science fiction, fantasy, and indigenous oral history into a genre bending tale centred around two estranged siblings confronting longstanding traumas.
Mise’l, played by Blake Alec Miranda as an adult, returns to his L’nuekati (Nova Scotia) hometown to warn his brother Antle, played by Forest Goodluck, that an evil spirit from their past has begun to once again close in on them. Skeptical at first, but wanting to protect his young family from this presence, Antle agrees to follow his brother into the ashy, enveloping darkness of the titular forest, where they must together stop the evil spirit from reaching a cave. Along the way, they experience visions of their younger selves (Skyler Cope as Mise’l, Ateun MacIsaac as Antle) and various ancestors, which both strengthen their resolve and wreaks havoc upon their perception of reality.
We had a chance to sit down with Hannam to talk about Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts) during the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (where the movie had its world premiere to talk about the writer-director’s approach to depicting trauma on screen, the casting process, finding where the story really begins, and what it takes to produce a great looking film in remote locations, while remaining respectful of the land.
Sk+te’kmujue’katik (At the Place of Ghosts) opens in select Canadian theatres on Friday, May 8, 2026.
