Billy Merasty

Billy Merasty

Born: January 1, 1960
in Brochet, Manitoba, Canada
Billy Merasty is an actor, playwright, Cree translator, and language keeper. He was born to Viola and Pierre Merasty in 1960 in Brochet, Manitoba. His grandfather was Joe Highway, a famous caribou hunter and champion dogsled racer. He moved to Toronto at age eighteen in search for his uncle René Highway, who was at the time working for the Toronto Dance Theatre. At age twenty-three Billy launched his acting career after graduating from the Native Theatre School for aspiring Indigenous artists. He then went on to work for the renowned Indigenous performing arts company Native Earth Performing Arts. Billy has worked as a film, television, and stage actor for decades and notably played the first Indigenous gay character on television on the CBC series, Liberty Street, in the role of Nathan. Billy received the Order of Manitoba (Order of the Buffalo Hunt) in recognition for his many years as an Indigenous role model in 2010.

Movies for Billy Merasty...

Café Daughter
Title: Café Daughter
Released: October 19, 2023
Type: Movie
In a small Saskatchewan town in the 1960s, Yvette Wong, a young girl of Chinese and Cree heritage, struggles with her Indigenous identity amidst family tragedy in this coming-of-age film directed by Mohawk artist and filmmaker Shelley Niro. Yvette’s mother, Katherine, discourages her from embracing her Cree identity, so she explores it in secret. As she learns more about herself and her Indigenous heritage, Yvette finds a friend in Maggie Wolf, who embraces being part Mi’kmaq and encourages Yvette to be proud of being Cree. When her classmates learn about her Cree ancestry, Yvette encounters the realities of being Indigenous, facing prejudice with pride and holding fast to her dream of becoming a doctor. Café Daughter is inspired by true events and based on Kenneth T. Williams’ play of the same name.
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Stellar
Title: Stellar
Character: Auntie 1
Released: September 11, 2022
Type: Movie
Set within the fluidity of time, touch, realism and reverie. Some may call this magic realism. Based within Indigenous knowledge and way of life, this story allows two people to heal, through touch, calm, love and patience in a fantastical space that leaves the audience dreamlike and yet it is dangerous and violent, there is love.
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The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw
Title: The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw
Character: William Bearclaw
Released: October 17, 2019
Type: Movie
An Indigenous woman reluctantly returns to her isolated reserve to help her father care for her bitter mother.
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It Chapter Two
Title: It Chapter Two
Character: Shokopiwah Man
Released: September 4, 2019
Type: Movie
27 years after overcoming the malevolent supernatural entity Pennywise, the former members of the Losers' Club, who have grown up and moved away from Derry, are brought back together by a devastating phone call.
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Heritage Minutes: Queenston Heights
Title: Heritage Minutes: Queenston Heights
Character: John Norton
Released: January 1, 2013
Type: Movie
Mohawk Chief John Norton and 80 Grand River warriors hold off American soldiers until reinforcements arrive and the Battle of Queenston Heights is won (1812).
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Title: Moby Dick
Character: Tashtego
Released: May 8, 2011
Type: TV
The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.
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Northern Lights
Title: Northern Lights
Character: Jacob
Released: March 21, 2009
Type: Movie
Hoping to leave behind troubled days in the Baltimore city police department, Nate Burns journeys to Alaska, where he takes up a quiet life as a small-town sheriff and begins a romance with spirited bush pilot Meg Galligan). But when Meg's father turns up dead, Burns finds himself thrust into the limelight of a dangerous murder investigation.
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Elijah
Title: Elijah
Character: Elijah Harper
Released: May 28, 2008
Type: Movie
The story of Elijah Harper.....
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Title: Moose TV
Released: July 5, 2007
Type: TV
Moose TV is a Canadian television sitcom, airing on Showcase in the 2007-08 television season. The show stars Adam Beach as George Keeshig, a Cree from the fictional community of Moose in northern Quebec, who returns home after a decade living in Toronto to become manager of the local community television station. The cast also includes Gary Farmer, Jennifer Podemski, Nathaniel Arcand, Michelle Latimer, Diane Flacks and Billy Merasty. The show's head writer is Paul Quarrington. The series was directed by Tim Southam. Produced by Rezolution Pictures for the Showcase network in Canada, the series received the Indie Award for Best Comedy Series from the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association in 2008.
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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Title: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Character: Young Man Afraid
Released: May 27, 2007
Type: Movie
Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the story is told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young, white-educated Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull the proud Lakota chief whose tribe won the American Indians’ last major victory at Little Big Horn.
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The New World
Title: The New World
Character: Kiskiak
Released: December 25, 2005
Type: Movie
A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.
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The Big White
Title: The Big White
Character: Cam
Released: October 27, 2005
Type: Movie
To remedy his financial problems, a travel agent has his eye on a frozen corpse, which just happens to be sought after by two hitmen.
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Battle of the Brave
Title: Battle of the Brave
Character: Owashak
Released: November 19, 2004
Type: Movie
In the mid-18th Century, as England and France battle over control of Canada, an epic romance between a peasant woman and a trapper unfurls
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Title: Wonderfalls
Character: Jerry
Released: March 12, 2004
Type: TV
Jaye Tyler, a recent Brown University graduate with a philosophy degree, holds a dead-end job as a sales clerk at a Niagara Falls gift shop. Jaye is the reluctant participant in conversations with various animal figurines — a wax lion, brass monkey, stuffed bear, and mounted fish, among others — which direct her via oblique instructions to help people in need.
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Title: Relic Hunter
Character: Inuit Hunter
Released: September 25, 1999
Type: TV
Sydney Fox is a professor and globe-trotting "relic hunter" who looks for ancient artifacts to return to museums and/or the descendants of the original owner. She is aided by her linguistic assistant Nigel and occasionally by her somewhat air-headed secretary Claudia. She often ends up battling rival hunters seeking out artifacts for the money.
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Honey Moccasin
Title: Honey Moccasin
Character: Zachary John
Released: January 1, 1998
Type: Movie
This all-Native production, by director Shelley Niro (Mohawk), is part of the Smoke Signals new wave of films that examine Native identity in the 1990’s. Set on the Grand Pine Indian Reservation, aka “Reservation X”, HONEY MOCCASIN combines elements of melodrama, performance art, cable access, and ‘whodunit’ to question conventions of ethnic and sexual identity as well as film narrative. A comedy/thriller complete with a fashion show and torchy musical numbers, this witty film employs a surreal pastiche of styles to depict the rivalry between bars The Smokin’ Moccasin and The Inukshuk Cafe, the saga of closeted drag queen/powwow clothing thief Zachary John, and the travails of crusading investigator Honey Moccasin. This irreverent reappropriation of familiar narrative strategies serves as a provocative spring-board for an investigation of authenticity, cultural identity, and the articulation of modern Native American experience in cinematic language and pop culture.
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The Confessional
Title: The Confessional
Character: Moose
Released: September 29, 1995
Type: Movie
Pierre Lamontagne has returned to Quebec to attend his father's funeral. He meets up with his adopted brother, Marc, who has begun questioning his identity and has embarked on a quest for his roots that would lead them to the Quebec of the 1950s. Past and present converge in a complex web of intrigue where the answer to the mystery lies.
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Pocahontas: The Legend
Title: Pocahontas: The Legend
Character: Kocoum
Released: June 1, 1995
Type: Movie
Englishmen come to explore and settle the new world. There they find natives who are curious about their "firesticks" and strange customs.
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Les Légendes du Grand Nord
Title: Les Légendes du Grand Nord
Character: Mawaki
Released: March 25, 1995
Type: Movie
A mixed group of adventurers searches for Esperanza, a legendary gold treasure, in the Yukon territory in this Jack London-based tale.
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Title: Liberty Street
Character: Nathan Jones
Released: January 11, 1995
Type: TV
Liberty Street was a Canadian drama television series, which aired on CBC Television in 1995. Produced by Kit Hood and Linda Schuyler, the team behind the long-running Degrassi series of television shows, Liberty Street was an attempt to create a similar series depicting the lives of a group of young adults living on their own for the first time. The pilot film, X-Rated, aired in 1994 and was developed into an 11-episode series. The cast included Henriette Ivanans, Joel Bissonnette, Billy Merasty, Kimberly Huie and Pat Mastroianni. Parts of the show were shot in and around the Liberty Village area of Toronto.
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Title: No Price Too High
Released: January 1, 1995
Type: TV
The Canadian contribution to World War Two was extraordinary in scale and variety. More than one million people, out of nation of just eleven million, volunteered to serve. To transform a small, virtually unequipped military into a powerful army, navy and air force was a remarkable achievement. No Price Too High traces Canada's involvement from the prewar years through 1945, explaining the events of the war in the context of the political and military realities of the time. There is none of the second guessing that has characterized so much recent analysis of the war. No Price Too High draws on original sources - personal letters and diary entries, and powerful photographs - to evoke the mood of those momentous years. The thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, and heartbreaks of the generation of Canadians who faced the war are captured. Produced by Norflicks, No Price Too High chronicles Canada's role in the major events of the war, including The Battle of Britain, Dieppe and D-Day.
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Exotica
Title: Exotica
Character: Man at opera
Released: November 30, 1994
Type: Movie
In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he introduces her onstage, but Eric is having his own relationship problems with the club's female owner. Thomas, a mysterious pet-shop owner, is about to become unexpectedly involved in their lives.
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X-Rated
Title: X-Rated
Character: Nathan Jones
Released: February 27, 1994
Type: Movie
A man is asked by his parents to run an apartment complex they own and becomes acquainted with an intriguing hippie girl and various other people from all walks of life who live there. This film is the pilot for Liberty Street (1994).
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The Broken Cord
Title: The Broken Cord
Character: Frank Cree
Released: February 3, 1992
Type: Movie
Fact-based story of an idealistic single dad who discovers that his beloved Native American adopted son is afflicted with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and complicates his life with the woman who becomes his wife.
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The Shaman's Source
Title: The Shaman's Source
Character: Mathew Hare
Released: January 1, 1990
Type: Movie
Three Ojibway Natives race to find a mystical ancestral spring before a ruthless industrialist claim it.
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Snake Treaty
Title: Snake Treaty
Released: January 24, 1989
Type: Movie
Guy Pehrsson is summoned by his grandfather to return to the farming community of his childhood. He arrives from the City to find that his mother has finally left his alcoholic and abusive father and now lives among the Indians, Guy's childhood friends and neighbours. He also discovers friction between the white farmers and the local Indians, now faced with the choice of selling or retaining their land. A choice made harder by poverty. Guy's boyhood friend, Tom Redfox, leads those Indians who wish to keep their land. Against the background of ensuing confrontation, Guy becomes reacquainted with his estranged parents, his childhood friends and old values, leading to a tragedy that affect the whole community.