The last time I ever spoke to Angel Gates—the lead dancer in Balmoral Hotel—was August 2022, shortly before she died.

Angel messaged me about how much she cherished our friendship and especially our film, Balmoral Hotel. At the time, I was preparing for my wedding and organizing a taxi to pick her up from her room in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES)—an area infamously known as “Canada’s Poorest Postal Code.”

Unfortunately, she never got in the cab.

Angel and I knew each other for 10 years. I always knew her as a warrior for the weak. Until her last breath, Angel vociferously advocated for the rights of drug users, sex workers, and Indigenous Peoples 1. Our many films were merely one aspect of her lifelong engagement with decolonizing social justice.

In 2015, we collaborated on a short dance film entitled Balmoral Hotel. Yvonne Chartrand 2 choreographed the dance off Angel’s autobiography. Indeed, throughout the film, you can see Angel delicately visualize her life as she meanders up East Hastings Street and into the defunct lobby of the notorious “Balmoral Hotel.” Angel was much more than an artist: She was a living example of Indigenous resilience and power, an example of how centuries of cultural genocide and assimilation failed to uproot Indigenous Peoples. Although Angel has exited stage, her story of resilience continues.

In 2017, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) asked Angel to pen a letter describing her experience as an actress in my films. Unfortunately, TIFF has since deleted that letter—a literal act of Indigenous erasure. So, as a final testament to Angel, I have reproduced her words here. Angel will have the final word.

— Wayne Wapeemukwa

The Final Word from Angel

My name is Angel Gates. I was blessed to be a part of Wayne Wapeemukwa’s films, such as Balmoral Hotel and our 2017 feature film Luk’Luk’I.

It was a few years ago that I got a call from Wayne. I guess he was doing research for his short film when he stumbled upon a short documentary about me, and how I wanted to leave prostitution. I think I was meant to be more of a “consultant” for the lingo and realities of my work, but I said to him: “If you want a good actress, you should hire a real prostitute.” He said I could have the job. I won't lie: in the beginning, it was about hustling him. (Old habits and all.) Later, it became more about freeing myself and humanizing an industry that I did not enter into of my own free will. I met Wayne when I was barely a year out of an almost 30-year nightmare in the sex trade. I was still struggling with who I was—if there was life after crack cocaine and prostitution, if I was worthy of leaving… As we got to know one another, we started to trust each other. It wasn't easy for me at first. Wayne was the first man I trusted after I exited the trade. Through filming the movie together, I found a respect for myself that I never had before. It was for having survived a life on the street that most people (even today’s working girls) could not keep their sanity living through.

Through making films like Balmoral Hotel with Wayne, I found healing. I got to release some of my deepest hurts and largest regrets by recreating them on film. It gave me the chance to forgive myself. Wayne hugged away a lot of my tears on set and I felt like I told my story. Mine! It was MY story to tell.

I know a lot of people are critical of the film. They talk about “exploitation.” But how many of those people ever risked their lives out on the corner, or felt a piece of their virtue gets put in the pockets of strange men day in and day out? How many of the people who were critical of my story ever felt pure hate and disgust from almost everyone who passed by who wasn’t a horny old man? How many of them know what it’s like to let yourself be raped every day so that when you’re attacked by a crazy man and he breaks all of your fingers, what pisses you off the most is that you didn’t get paid? And how many of them stood beside the women who disappeared while no one did a thing? This is only a small portion of what I went through out there on Hastings Street.

Wayne and our cast and crew are the most courageous people I know, and I love them like they are my family. It takes balls to tell these stories, especially when it’s your own. If Wayne hadn’t cared enough to help us tell our stories, how would they ever be heard? There are people who are trying to gentrify the Downtown Eastsides of the world; people who believe we are disposable. Maybe this film is not a fluffy story with a climatic happy end. But if you're living it, it is still a story of victory. There is so much pain, but we love and laugh through it. There is a beauty in our struggles because no matter what the world thinks of us, we have survived and we struggle on.

I’ve dedicated my performance in the film to my sisters who are missing and murdered. I don't ever want them to be forgotten. They could very easily have been me. Whether you like it or hate it, I hope we made a film that gets people talking about the Downtown Eastside. Maybe they'll start helping us, instead of building over us.

— Angel Gates