BIFF Legacy Gala: Dead Man w/ Gary Farmer

Dead Man

Jim Jarmusch (Dir), 121 minutes, USA

BIFF LEGACY GALA

Jim Jarmusch's iconic Acid Western "imagined the nineteenth-century American West as an existential wasteland, delivering a surreal reckoning with the ravages of industrialization, the country’s legacy of violence and prejudice, and the natural cycle of life and death. Accountant William Blake (Johnny Depp) has hardly arrived in the godforsaken outpost of Machine before he’s caught in the middle of a fatal lovers’ quarrel. Wounded and on the lam, Blake falls under the watch of the outcast Nobody (Gary Farmer), who guides his companion on a spiritual journey, teaching him to dispense poetic justice along the way. Featuring austerely beautiful black-and-white photography by Robby Müller and a live-wire score by Neil Young, Dead Man is a profound and unique revision of the western genre." Starring Johnny Depp and Gary Farmer. Also starring Mili Avital, Eugene Byrd, Gabriel Byrne, Mike Dawson, Crispin Glover, Jared Harris, Lance Henriksen, John Hurt, Robert Mitchum, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Wincott, and more.

Thank you to Janus Films.

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The screening will be followed by a discussion and live audience Q+A with Dead Man Star, and BIFF 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Gary Farmer

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Gary Farmer is an actor and musician, born on Six Nations of the Grand River, Ohsweken, Ontario. He grew up in both Niagara Falls and Buffalo, NY, graduating from Lafayette High School, then Genesee Community College and Syracuse University, then on to Toronto where his interest in acting was nurtured.

He is widely recognized as a forerunner in the development of Indigenous media in Canada and was the founding director of an urban Indian radio network, Aboriginal Voices Radio Network. He also published Aboriginal Voices Magazine from 1993 - 2003.

Gary began performing on stage, working in theater from 1975 - 1987 in Canada. Winning Dora Mavor for best new play in 1989 for Tomson Highway’s, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing.

Gary has been nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards for Best Supporting Male in the films: Powwow Highway (1989), Dead Man (1995) which won the 1996 European Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and Smoke Signals (1998).

He has also directed several popular short films, both independent and for television, and was the executive producer and a director of the APTN entertainment series Buffalo Tracks.

Recent credits include series regular on Resident Alien, Reservation Dogs, The English, Our Flag Means Death, The Curse. Independent films: Quantum Cowboys, Blood Quantum, Hey Viktor!, Ghost Dog, First Cow, Major Barbara. Classics: The Score, Tales from the Crypt, Demon Knight, Miami Vice. Upcoming: The Lowdown, Margie Claus, An Enemy of the People, How We Stand.

Gary Farmer and the Troublemakers album, Fool For Love, won Best Americana Album at the 2023 New Mexico Music Awards. "Sing That Song" reached #5 on the Top 40 and Gary’s new single, "Beautiful Morning," topped the charts at #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown.

Gary is in the studio recording a new album to be released in the Fall of 2026.

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