Artists

Ajuawak Kapashesit

Pronouns: he/him
Tribal Affiliation: Waskaganish Cree, White Earth Ojibwe Descendant

Ajuawak Kapashesit is an actor, writer, and director for stage and screen. His acting credits include Indian Horse (2017), Once Upon a River (2019), Indian Road Trip (2020), Bad Blood (CityTV/Netflix), Outlander (Starz/Sony), and is the voice of Han Solo in the Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe Language) dub of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Disney/Lucasfilm). In 2018, he was an Indigenous Film Opportunity Fellow with the Sundance Film Institute and a finalist for the Sundance Indigenous Filmmaker’s Fellowship. His short story, A Fresh Start, was published in the anthology Before the Usual Time by Latitude 46. He was a story editor and contributing writer for the second and third seasons of the sketch comedy show, Tallboyz, on CBC. His short plays include The Walking Red (co-written with Jenn Hall), and Rites of Passage (Native Voices at the Autry finalist 2017). Ajuawak is an alumnus of the CBC Actors Conservatory at the Canadian Film Centre (2019), a Vision Maker Media Shorts Fellow (2020), a 4th World Indigenous Media Fellow (2021) and a filmmaker with Homegrown: Future Visions supported by Firelight Media, CAAM, and PBS (2022). His directing credits include Seeds (co-directed with Morningstar Angeline; Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival ‘22), Carrying the Fire (Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival ‘22), and Language Keepers (Cleveland International Film Festival ‘23). He is Anishinaabe (Ojibwe), Cree, and Jewish and grew up living on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation in northern Minnesota and the Cree community of Moose Factory in northern Ontario.