Frybread Face and Me, the new film by writer/director Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna), is a refreshing Indigenous queer take on the coming-of-age genre, shot in New Mexico with some of today’s hottest emerging and established Diné actors. A crowd-pleasing, family-friendly tale set on the Navajo Nation in 1990, it’s replete with pop-culture references from the big city of San Diego, including Fleetwood Mac, SeaWorld and Shamu, juxtaposed with reservation staples — bent cutlery, a crash course in fence-building and hard lessons from an angry uncle and a skeptical cousin, not to mention a Diné grandma who communicates only in the Diné language. Benny (Keir Tallman), our hero, is a fish out of water in this Indigenous story, someone who is going to have to learn to swim, and swim quickly.

Luther is no stranger to making films inspired by Diné culture; his 2007 documentary Miss Navajo explored how Diné people choose their Miss Navajo Nation. In Frybread Face and Me, he has crafted a film that explores complex and contemporary Indigenous thematic structures and tropes. What happens to Indigenous people who choose to leave the reservation, or to those who stay, for that matter? Is happiness possible in either situation? And what does that happiness look like? Why is an uncle so angry on the rez? How does an aunt decide to return to the big city? These are but a few of the subjects touched on in the film.