It’s a scary gift for Laura Vallejo…
The Latina actress, best known for her work on American Crime Story, will star in the film Gift of Fear, from directors Katy Dore and Jack Kohler.
Vallejo joins a cast that includes Justin Johnson Cortez, Michael Horse, Sam Marra, Elle Beyer and newcomer Isa Antonetti.
Highlighting a major crisis devastating Native populations across America and Canada, the film centers on a young Indigenous woman who goes after a gang of sex traffickers when her friend is kidnapped.
Cortez plays Manny Donovan, a federal agent from the newly formed Missing and Murdered unit, who is half Native American and thrust into two different cultural worlds as he tries to solve the case and bring the missing woman home.
A deeply personal and important film for the Native cast and crew, the project was developed, in part, due to co-director and Hoopa tribal member Kohler’s own experience of having 72 women missing from the Hoopa Valley tribes.
Dr. April Lea Go Forth is serving as an EP on the On Native Ground production, which was written by Carly and Jack Kohler.
“It means so much to me to be part of a project highlighting the very real, yet under reported epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women,” said Cortez. “I hope the film will bring awareness and inspire others to become allies in the movement to keep our Native people safe.”
No word on Vallejo’s character.
