Sherenté Mishitashin "Being Thunder" Harris, a Two Spirit Genderqueer teenager from the Narragansett tribe in Rhode Island, boldly challenges the status quo of what it means to be a queer indigenous person in a world bound by binary gender roles.
A poetic documentary circling the origin of the death myth from the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, MALNI - TOWARDS THE OCEAN, TOWARDS THE SHORE follows two people as they wander through their surrounding nature, the spirit world, and something much deeper inside.
A documentary portrait of a Blackfeet (Pikuni) family, the Mombergs, who live on the lower Blackfeet Reservation in Montana near the banks of Badger Creek.
In addition to running a prosperous ranching business, they practice a traditional Blackfeet cultural lifestyle that sustains and nourishes them, including sending their children to a Blackfeet language immersion school, participating in Blackfeet spiritual ceremonies and maintaining a Blackfeet worldview. The film takes us through a year in the life of the family, and through four seasons of the magnificent and traditional territory of the Pikuni Nation.
An Eastern Shoshone elder and two Northern Arapaho youth living on the Wind River Indian Reservation attempt to learn why thousands of ancestral artifacts are in the darkness of underground archives of museums and churches, boxed away and forgotten. Like millions of indigenous people in many parts of the world, they do not control their own material culture. It is being preserved, locked away, by ‘outsiders’ who themselves do not know what they have. These beautiful ancestral objects — drums, pipes, eagle wing fans, medicine bags, weapons, and ceremonial attire — are far from home, their meaning slowly being lost to time. Should tribes attempt to bring them back? Many want to, including our three main characters. But why do they want them back? What answers do they seek from these artifacts? How can they take control of their own past? Is recovering what’s lost even possible anymore?
Gather follows the stories of natives on the frontlines of a growing movement to reconnect with spiritual and cultural identities that were devastated by genocide.
An indigenous chef embarks on a ambitious project to reclaim ancient food ways on the Apache reservation; in South Dakota a gifted Lakota high school student, raised on a buffalo ranch, is proving her tribes native wisdom through her passion for science; and a group of young men of the Yurok tribe in Northern California are struggling to keep their culture alive and rehabilitate the habitat of their sacred salmon.
All these stories combine to show how the reclaiming and recovery of ancient food ways is a way forward for native Americans to bring back health and vitality to their people.
An exploration of Native American-based mascots, especially the Washington Rdskins, and their impact on real-life attitudes, issues, and policies. Through interviews with scholars, tribal leaders, lawyers, policy experts, activists, and Washington Rdskins fans, the film explores the history of the slanderous term “redskin,” and delves into cultural stereotypes of Native Americans and their relationship to history. Ultimately, the film argues for representations that honor and celebrate the humanity of Indigenous people.
Based on the true story of the Bell Waterline Project, The Cherokee Word for Water shares the struggle for, opposition to, and ultimate success of a rural Cherokee community to bring running water to their families by using the traditional concept of “gadugi “– working together to solve a problem.
We Breathe Again explores the lives of five Alaska Native people, each confronting the impacts of historic and contemporary trauma. Reflected in the norther lights and the city streetlights, from the ice roads to the asphalt, the characters battle for personal healing, hoping to break new trail for their families and their communities to follow.