Fox Maxy is a 2022–2024 Borderlands Fellow whose fellowship project, Watertight, is part of the Vera List Center’s Focus Theme cycle Correction*.

Fox Maxy’s fellowship project Watertight is a feature film that explores mental health and challenges the idea there is a “right” way to heal. As a hybrid documentary, the film merges interviews of friends, family, and the film crew that delve into discussions on mental health and suicide within their respective communities. The narratives are interwoven with commercial breaks, which take the form of fake infomercials, parodies of reality TV, animations, and scenes inspired by Westerns, romantic comedies, science fiction, and horror movie genres. Together, these scenes create the sensation of flipping through channels with stories that travel across Indian country and big cities, following people who create their own realities. Watertight is a movie about dreams and nightmares, and a way to honor people who have been able to carve their own worlds.

Fox Maxy is a film director and artist in San Diego. Her work has screened at the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight, BAMcinemaFest, LACMA, BlackStar Film Festival, ImagineNative Film Festival, and Rotterdam (IFFR), among other places. In 2022, Fox was named as Sundance Institute’s Merata Mita Fellow, in honor of Merata Mita (Ngāi Te Rangi/Ngāti Pikiao), one of the first Maori women to write and direct a feature film.