Roxann (Karonhiarokwas) Whitebean is an independent film director and media artist from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake (Canada).
[1] She wrote, directed and produced her first short fiction film, Legend of the Storm, with financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Starring Noelani Jasmine Rourke in the role of the young protagonist Otsistas, and filmed on location in Kahnawake, Legend of the Storm is a "poetic allegory" [2] inspired by Whitebean's experience as a child living through the events of the Oka crisis in 1990.
[6] It was turned into the 5-part CBC documentary series Thunder Blanket (2016), described as "surprisingly sentimental, but it also contain some poignant and touching moments about the emotional and physical toll of living with cancer" [5] by Jules Morgan in the medical journal The Lancet Oncology.
In the last instalment of the documentary series, Whitebean indicates that she already started working on a new film project "based on the 'cancer monster' that appeared in her dreams".