Billy Merasty

Acting

Billy Merasty

Born

1960-01-01 (66)

Place of birth

Brochet, Manitoba, Canada

Known for

Acting

Credits

43 titles

Billy Merasty is an actor, playwright, Cree translator, and language keeper. He was born to Viola and Pierre Merasty in 1960 in Brochet, Manitoba. His grandfather was Joe Highway, a famous caribou hunter and champion dogsled racer. He moved to Toronto at age eighteen in search for his uncle René Highway, who was at the time working for the Toronto Dance Theatre. At age twenty-three Billy launched his acting career after graduating from the Native Theatre School for aspiring Indigenous artists. He then went on to work for the renowned Indigenous performing arts company Native Earth Performing Arts. Billy has worked as a film, television, and stage actor for decades and notably played the firs…

Known for

Murdoch Mysteries poster
7.7

A Victorian-era Toronto detective uses then-cutting edge forensic techniques to solve crimes, with the assistance of a female coroner who is also struggling for recognition in the face of tradition, based on the books by Maureen Jennings.

Murdoch Mysteries

2008

American Experience poster
6.5

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

American Experience

1988

Relic Hunter poster
6.8

Sydney Fox is a professor and globe-trotting "relic hunter" who looks for ancient artifacts to return to museums and/or the descendants of the original owner. She is aided by her linguistic assistant Nigel and occasionally by her somewhat air-headed secretary Claudia. She often ends up battling rival hunters seeking out artifacts for the money.

Relic Hunter

1999

Heritage Minutes poster
7.3

Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies and are now also sold on DVD. The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991 as part of a one-off heavily-promoted history quiz show hosted by Rex Murphy. The thirteen original short films were broken up and run between shows on CBC Television and CTV Network. The continued broadcast of the Minutes and the production of new ones was pioneered by Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, Canada Post Power Broadcasting, and the National Film Board. They were devised, developed and largely narrated by noted Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson, while the producer of the series was Robert Guy Scully. In 2009 Historica merged with The Dominion Institute to become The Historica-Dominion Institute. While the foundations have not paid networks to air Minutes, they have made them freely available, and in the early years paid to have them run in cinemas across the country. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Heritage Minutes are an "on-going dramatic series" thus each minute counts as ninety-seconds of a station's Canadian content requirements.

Heritage Minutes

1991

It Chapter Two poster
6.8

27 years after overcoming the malevolent supernatural entity Pennywise, the former members of the Losers' Club, who have grown up and moved away from Derry, are brought back together by a devastating phone call.

It Chapter Two

2019

This Is Wonderland poster
8.0

Alice De Raey is a newly minted attorney who joins the chaotic world of criminal justice in Toronto. She's exposed to the seamier side of life, the backroom deals that make the system work accompanied by the usual eccentric characters.

This Is Wonderland

2004

Film credits

2020s · 3 titles

Stellar poster
1.0

Set within the fluidity of time, touch, realism and reverie. Some may call this magic realism. Based within Indigenous knowledge and way of life, this story allows two people to heal, through touch, calm, love and patience in a fantastical space that leaves the audience dreamlike and yet it is dangerous and violent, there is love.

Stellar

2022

Café Daughter poster
NR

In a small Saskatchewan town in the 1960s, Yvette Wong, a young girl of Chinese and Cree heritage, struggles with her Indigenous identity amidst family tragedy in this coming-of-age film directed by Mohawk artist and filmmaker Shelley Niro. Yvette’s mother, Katherine, discourages her from embracing her Cree identity, so she explores it in secret. As she learns more about herself and her Indigenous heritage, Yvette finds a friend in Maggie Wolf, who embraces being part Mi’kmaq and encourages Yvette to be proud of being Cree. When her classmates learn about her Cree ancestry, Yvette encounters the realities of being Indigenous, facing prejudice with pride and holding fast to her dream of becoming a doctor. Café Daughter is inspired by true events and based on Kenneth T. Williams’ play of the same name.

Café Daughter

2023

Aberdeen poster
8.3

An idyllic childhood with her mooshum and kookum, or grandparents, in her community of Peguis First Nation dissipates as Aberdeen’s hard-partying and absentee parents distances her from that haven. Now an adult, sleeping on public benches, Winnipeg-based Aberdeen is in survival mode. The last remaining stable parts of her life begin slipping away — her reliable brother Boyd is ill and gives up Aberdeen’s grandkids to the foster care system. Then she loses her ID.

Aberdeen

2024

2010s · 5 titles

It Chapter Two poster
6.8

27 years after overcoming the malevolent supernatural entity Pennywise, the former members of the Losers' Club, who have grown up and moved away from Derry, are brought back together by a devastating phone call.

It Chapter Two

2019

Casino Jack poster
5.9

Based on a true story, a hot shot Washington DC lobbyist and his protégé go down hard as their schemes to peddle influence lead to corruption and murder.

Casino Jack

2010

Falls Around Her poster
7.5

A world-famous Anishinaabe musician returns to the reserve to rest and recharge — only to discover that fame (and the outside world) are not easily left behind.

Falls Around Her

2018

The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw poster
4.0

As MITZI BEARCLAW turns 25 years-old, she is faced with a tragic decision – stay in the big city to pursue her dream of designing hats or leave her boyfriend and return home to her isolated reserve to help care for her sick mother. Loyal to her family, Mitzi reluctantly returns to Owl Island to find that not much has changed. Her confidence and modern style clash with the sleepy, slow-paced island; the bullies are the same; the handsome HONEYBOY is still running the water taxi; and ANNABELLE, Mitzi’s mother is still as bitter and unloving as ever. She’s also reunited with her spiritual friends, FAITH, HOPE, and CHARITY who guide her as she navigates a year of anger, loss and love. Mitzi is soon surprised to find comfort in being home and starts to question her destiny.

The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw

2019

Heritage Minutes: Queenston Heights poster
NR

Mohawk Chief John Norton and 80 Grand River warriors hold off American soldiers until reinforcements arrive and the Battle of Queenston Heights is won (1812).

Heritage Minutes: Queenston Heights

2013

2000s · 8 titles

The New World poster
6.5

A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.

The New World

2005

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee poster
6.5

Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the story is told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young, white-educated Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull the proud Lakota chief whose tribe won the American Indians’ last major victory at Little Big Horn.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

2007

The Big White poster
6.2

To remedy his financial problems, a travel agent has his eye on a frozen corpse, which just happens to be sought after by two hitmen.

The Big White

2005

Stardom poster
5.4

A young girl is plucked from small-town obscurity and thrust into the spotlight of the glamorous world of super-models.

Stardom

2000

Northern Lights poster
6.0

Hoping to leave behind troubled days in the Baltimore city police department, Nate Burns journeys to Alaska, where he takes up a quiet life as a small-town sheriff and begins a romance with spirited bush pilot Meg Galligan). But when Meg's father turns up dead, Burns finds himself thrust into the limelight of a dangerous murder investigation.

Northern Lights

2009

Battle of the Brave poster
6.3

In the mid-18th Century, as England and France battle over control of Canada, an epic romance between a peasant woman and a trapper unfurls

Battle of the Brave

2004

The Virginian poster
5.4

A cowboy finds himself betrayed by his best friend and must choose between bringing him to justice and alienating the pretty schoolteacher he is in love with.

The Virginian

2000

Elijah poster
NR

The story of Elijah Harper.....

Elijah

2008

1990s · 8 titles

Exotica poster
6.6

In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he introduces her onstage, but Eric is having his own relationship problems with the club's female owner. Thomas, a mysterious pet-shop owner, is about to become unexpectedly involved in their lives.

Exotica

1994

Pocahontas: The Legend poster
5.9

Englishmen come to explore and settle the new world. There they find natives who are curious about their "firesticks" and strange customs.

Pocahontas: The Legend

1995

Honey Moccasin poster
4.0

This all-Native production, by director Shelley Niro (Mohawk), is part of the Smoke Signals new wave of films that examine Native identity in the 1990’s. Set on the Grand Pine Indian Reservation, aka “Reservation X”, HONEY MOCCASIN combines elements of melodrama, performance art, cable access, and ‘whodunit’ to question conventions of ethnic and sexual identity as well as film narrative. A comedy/thriller complete with a fashion show and torchy musical numbers, this witty film employs a surreal pastiche of styles to depict the rivalry between bars The Smokin’ Moccasin and The Inukshuk Cafe, the saga of closeted drag queen/powwow clothing thief Zachary John, and the travails of crusading investigator Honey Moccasin. This irreverent reappropriation of familiar narrative strategies serves as a provocative spring-board for an investigation of authenticity, cultural identity, and the articulation of modern Native American experience in cinematic language and pop culture.

Honey Moccasin

1998

The Confessional poster
6.0

Pierre Lamontagne has returned to Quebec to attend his father's funeral. He meets up with his adopted brother, Marc, who has begun questioning his identity and has embarked on a quest for his roots that would lead them to the Quebec of the 1950s. Past and present converge in a complex web of intrigue where the answer to the mystery lies.

The Confessional

1995

X-Rated poster
3.0

A man is asked by his parents to run an apartment complex they own and becomes acquainted with an intriguing hippie girl and various other people from all walks of life who live there. This film is the pilot for Liberty Street (1994).

X-Rated

1994

Les Légendes du Grand Nord poster
7.0

A mixed group of adventurers searches for Esperanza, a legendary gold treasure, in the Yukon territory in this Jack London-based tale.

Les Légendes du Grand Nord

1995

The Broken Cord poster
6.3

Fact-based story of an idealistic single dad who discovers that his beloved Native American adopted son is afflicted with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and complicates his life with the woman who becomes his wife.

The Broken Cord

1992

No artwork available
4.0

Three Ojibway Natives race to find a mystical ancestral spring before a ruthless industrialist claim it.

The Shaman's Source

1990

1980s · 2 titles

Series credits

Murdoch Mysteries poster
7.7

A Victorian-era Toronto detective uses then-cutting edge forensic techniques to solve crimes, with the assistance of a female coroner who is also struggling for recognition in the face of tradition, based on the books by Maureen Jennings.

Murdoch Mysteries

2008

American Experience poster
6.5

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

American Experience

1988

Relic Hunter poster
6.8

Sydney Fox is a professor and globe-trotting "relic hunter" who looks for ancient artifacts to return to museums and/or the descendants of the original owner. She is aided by her linguistic assistant Nigel and occasionally by her somewhat air-headed secretary Claudia. She often ends up battling rival hunters seeking out artifacts for the money.

Relic Hunter

1999

Heritage Minutes poster
7.3

Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies and are now also sold on DVD. The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991 as part of a one-off heavily-promoted history quiz show hosted by Rex Murphy. The thirteen original short films were broken up and run between shows on CBC Television and CTV Network. The continued broadcast of the Minutes and the production of new ones was pioneered by Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, Canada Post Power Broadcasting, and the National Film Board. They were devised, developed and largely narrated by noted Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson, while the producer of the series was Robert Guy Scully. In 2009 Historica merged with The Dominion Institute to become The Historica-Dominion Institute. While the foundations have not paid networks to air Minutes, they have made them freely available, and in the early years paid to have them run in cinemas across the country. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Heritage Minutes are an "on-going dramatic series" thus each minute counts as ninety-seconds of a station's Canadian content requirements.

Heritage Minutes

1991

This Is Wonderland poster
8.0

Alice De Raey is a newly minted attorney who joins the chaotic world of criminal justice in Toronto. She's exposed to the seamier side of life, the backroom deals that make the system work accompanied by the usual eccentric characters.

This Is Wonderland

2004

SkyMed poster
6.7

Life, death and drama at 20,000 feet. The series weaves together intense character journeys and high-stakes medical rescues, as we follow the triumphs, heartbreaks and tribulations of budding nurses and pilots flying air ambulances in remote Northern Canada. They’re all in over their heads, and on their own, with no one to rely on but each other.

SkyMed

2022

Cardinal poster
6.9

Detective John Cardinal attempts to uncover the mystery of what happened to the missing 13-year-old girl whose body is discovered in the shaft-head of an abandoned mine. At the same time, he comes under investigation by his new partner, Lise Delorme, a tough investigator in her own right.

Cardinal

2017

Diggstown poster
6.8

Follow Marcie Diggs, a star corporate lawyer who reconsiders her priorities after her beloved aunt commits suicide following a malicious prosecution.

Diggstown

2019

Wonderfalls poster
7.7

Jaye Tyler, a recent Brown University graduate with a philosophy degree, holds a dead-end job as a sales clerk at a Niagara Falls gift shop. Jaye is the reluctant participant in conversations with various animal figurines — a wax lion, brass monkey, stuffed bear, and mounted fish, among others — which direct her via oblique instructions to help people in need.

Wonderfalls

2004

Acting Good poster
5.0

After a botched attempt to move to Winnipeg, Paul retreats back to his eccentric family in the fly-in community of Grouse Lake First Nation.

Acting Good

2022

Moby Dick poster
5.7

The sole survivor of a lost whaling ship relates the tale of his captain's self-destructive obsession to hunt the white whale, Moby Dick.

Moby Dick

2011

Liberty Street poster
3.7

Liberty Street was a Canadian drama television series, which aired on CBC Television in 1995. Produced by Kit Hood and Linda Schuyler, the team behind the long-running Degrassi series of television shows, Liberty Street was an attempt to create a similar series depicting the lives of a group of young adults living on their own for the first time. The pilot film, X-Rated, aired in 1994 and was developed into an 11-episode series. The cast included Henriette Ivanans, Joel Bissonnette, Billy Merasty, Kimberly Huie and Pat Mastroianni. Parts of the show were shot in and around the Liberty Village area of Toronto.

Liberty Street

1995

Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis poster
7.0

Fictionalized portrayal of the conflict and standoff in Kanehsatake during the summer of 1990. This major conflict between a Mohawk community and municipal, Quebec and Canadian governments was over the expansion of a golf course into an aboriginal cemetery. Based on the book by John Ciaccia (Quebec Liberal cabinet minister and negotiator) : The Oka Crisis, A Mirror of the Soul

Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis

2006

No Price Too High poster
10.0

The Canadian contribution to World War Two was extraordinary in scale and variety. More than one million people, out of nation of just eleven million, volunteered to serve. To transform a small, virtually unequipped military into a powerful army, navy and air force was a remarkable achievement. No Price Too High traces Canada's involvement from the prewar years through 1945, explaining the events of the war in the context of the political and military realities of the time. There is none of the second guessing that has characterized so much recent analysis of the war. No Price Too High draws on original sources - personal letters and diary entries, and powerful photographs - to evoke the mood of those momentous years. The thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, and heartbreaks of the generation of Canadians who faced the war are captured. Produced by Norflicks, No Price Too High chronicles Canada's role in the major events of the war, including The Battle of Britain, Dieppe and D-Day.

No Price Too High

1995

No artwork available
NR

A widowed Ukrainian plumber and a widowed Cree waitress fall madly in love resulting in a riotous fireworks display of conflicts with friends and family.

Mixed Blessings

2007

Moose TV poster
NR

Moose TV is a Canadian television sitcom, airing on Showcase in the 2007-08 television season. The show stars Adam Beach as George Keeshig, a Cree from the fictional community of Moose in northern Quebec, who returns home after a decade living in Toronto to become manager of the local community television station. The cast also includes Gary Farmer, Jennifer Podemski, Nathaniel Arcand, Michelle Latimer, Diane Flacks and Billy Merasty. The show's head writer is Paul Quarrington. The series was directed by Tim Southam. Produced by Rezolution Pictures for the Showcase network in Canada, the series received the Indie Award for Best Comedy Series from the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association in 2008.

Moose TV

2007

War of 1812 poster
8.0

Actors and real-life accounts bring to life an extraordinary conflict that decided the fate of North America, confirmed the creation of Canada, and annihilated the dream of an independent Native nation.

War of 1812

1999