Muckleshoot — Tobi Iverson Halliday, a Tsimshian and Turtle Mountain Chippewa writer based in the Pacific Northwest, is gaining national and international recognition for her debut feature screenplay, Wild Woman of the Woods — a mythic Indigenous action-thriller set in the 1800s along the Northern Pacific Coast.
Married to Muckleshoot Tribal member John Halliday, Tobi has long dreamed of bringing the rich cultures, stories, and landscapes of Northwest Tribal nations to the big screen.
“I want the world to fall into our world — to experience our myths, our legends, our canoes, totems, and button blankets. Hollywood has never shown the full beauty of our world. I want our ancestors to be seen with awe, dignity, and full humanity.”
— Tobi Iverson Halliday
Since May, Wild Woman of the Woods has built serious momentum on the international film festival circuit. The script was recently named a semi-finalist at the Oscar-qualifying Rhode Island International Film Festival, a winner of the Best Diverse Writer Award at the Santa Barbara International Screenplay Awards, and a finalist at both the Cambridge Script Festival in England and the Toronto International Women Film Festival.
Tobi also earned a coveted spot as a “Second Rounder” (quarter-finalist) at the prestigious Austin Film Festival, widely regarded as the most competitive screenwriting contest in the world. She will attend the festival and participate in its pitch sessions this October.
In addition, Tobi was recently selected as one of just 40 filmmakers invited to the Bend Film Festival’s Basecamp Retreat, where she will work closely with respected Hollywood professionals to further develop her script for production.
Industry veteran Wally Lane, former chair of the Northwest Screenwriters Guild, has mentored Tobi throughout this journey, calling Wild Woman of the Woods “one of the best historical dramas I’ve ever read.”
What began as a personal passion is quickly turning into a promising career. A graduate of the University of Washington in Native American Studies and Anthropology, Tobi is committed to creating authentic roles for Indigenous actors and filmmakers — and to showcasing the matriarchal cultures, shamanic traditions, and warrior histories of the Pacific Northwest on a global stage.
Her story is just beginning.
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