[10] For directing The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, she shared the Canadian Screen Award for Best Director with Kathleen Hepburn.
[9][14] After acting for a period of time, Tailfeathers shifted her focus to filmmaking and began to work as a writer, director, and producer.
The short film uses metaphoric imagery of a woman being held down and drilled into as a comment on the current fracking practices in Canada.
[14] The film was well received at its premier in Lethbridge, and was the subject of a greater national debate regarding the practice of fracking in Indigenous lands.
[18] Co-directed with Kathleen Hepburn, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open centres on the interaction between Áila (Tailfeathers), an indigenous woman with a stable and happy domestic life, and Rosie (Violet Nelson), a more impoverished First Nations woman who has just been a victim of domestic abuse, after they meet in the street.
[2] For directing The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Tailfeathers shared the Canadian Screen Award for Best Director with Hepburn.
Tailfeathers explores "innovative means of telling stories through mediums including narrative fiction, docudrama, documentary, mockumentary, and experimental film.
[5] One of Tailfeathers' primary focuses as a filmmaker is activism and social justice; she approaches film as a way to "use it as a form of nonviolent direct action against issues like violence against women and degradation of Indigenous land.
"[9][14] Her film and activist pursuits focus on issues that directly relate to and affect Indigenous women and communities.