World champion boxer Kali Reis is making her acting debut in a starring role in the award-winning IFC Films sex trafficking thriller, “Catch the Fair One.”
Reis plays Kaylee Uppashaw, an Indigenous boxer whose best fighting days are behind her. She spends her nights at a shelter, waits tables at a diner and mourns the disappearance of her younger sister, Weeta, who was kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring. Kaylee, who is long separated from her girlfriend and estranged from her mother, has little to lose when she embarks on the fight of her life after receiving a tip about Weeta’s whereabouts.
When NBC News asked what viewers can expect, Reis simply said, “Brace yourself firmly!”
Reis is Native American and Cape Verdean and also identifies as two-spirit. Two-spirit people, according to a description in Indian Country Today, have "both a male and female spirit within them and are blessed by their Creator to see life through the eyes of both genders." Reis said her intersectional identity and her personal experiences are reflected in the film.
“Taking a lot of things from my real life and incorporating this into the movie and script is another layer,” she said. “A lot of things are a little taboo in Native country; not all Indigenous people recognize two-spirit as something of an honor.”
Reis, who co-wrote the screenplay alongside director Josef Kubota Wladyka, said Wladyka — who is not Indigenous — knew this “wasn’t his story to tell” and “really took the great approach of just getting to know me and my story. He sat down with my elders and really just wanted to share information back and forth, especially on the subject of missing and murdered Indigenous women.”
Reis, an advocate with the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women movement, or MMIW, described her participation in the film as a cathartic experience but lamented the lack of media coverage around this marginalized group of women.
“I get alerts on my phone all day, every day, about Indigenous people going missing, and we don’t see that,” she said.
“Catch the Fair One” snagged the Audience Award for best narrative feature at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Reis is also nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award for best female lead in her starring role.
“Catch the Fair One” is showing in theaters and available on streaming platforms.
