Neil Diamond never thought much of the First Nations stereotypes created by Hollywood westerns — he and his friends always cheered for the white cowboys. It wasn’t until he moved from Waskaganish in Northern Quebec to attend high school in urban Hull that he realized the ignorance that surrounded First Nations people.

“I got all these questions about Native people; do you still live in teepees, do you still ride horses, do you speak Indian?” he says. “And I’d get those kind of questions not just from students but from adults too.”

Realizing it was the depiction of First Nations people in film that was responsible for such misconceptions, Diamond set out to address and dispel the stereotypes with the documentary, Reel Injun.

The film charts the history of First Nations people in film from some of the earliest examples of moving images through to the emergence of First Nations filmmakers in the 1990s, using dozens of film clips to address the evolution of the public’s perception of First Nations people over the last century.  

“That image is so powerful,” says Diamond. “That’s what sticks in people’s minds. The image of a guy in feathers on horseback.”

The kernel of the idea for Reel Injun came one night as Diamond watched an old movie where the First Nations character was played by a white actor in “red face,” a common phenomenon in many Hollywood westerns. “I had an idea for a funny documentary that I was going to call it I’m Not Indian, But I Play One on TV.” The project evolved from there.

The resulting documentary premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, where Diamond says they got a “good” reaction from the crowd. “But a month later it opened the ImagineNATIVE Film festival where the audience was 95 per cent Native. It was amazing. They were laughing so much that they would miss the next joke. I wanted to stand up and say “Quiet down. There’s something else coming up.”

Despite the movie’s success here in Canada, Diamond is unsure how the film will be received in the U.S. where a large part of the national character is historically defined by the iconic images of the Hollywood western.

He’ll soon find out when the film screens at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in March ahead of its Los Angeles theatrical premiere.

“I’d like to attend one of those screenings,” he says. “I’ll sit by the exit so I can make my break.”

Reel Injun opens in theatres on Friday