Festival of Native Film & Culture

SPECIAL PRE-FESTIVAL LECTURE

All are welcome and admission is free.

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Film Synopses in Schedule Order
Click on the film title to purchase tickets online.

Each evening at 7:00 pm
Festival Tent Meet & Greet
Visit with filmmakers, actors, and other guests. Light refreshments are available for purchase.

Wednesday, February 29
8:00 PM

The Necessities of Life (Ce qu’il faut pour vivre)- Canada, Feature Drama, 102 minutes

Tivii, an Inuit hunter, is diagnosed with tuberculosis and leaves his home and family to recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City where everything seems alien. He becomes despondent and expresses to his nurse, Carole, a wish to die. Carole determines that Tivii’s physical illness is not the only serious threat to his well-being and arranges to have a similarly afflicted young Inuit orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy, who’s been away from his Inuk culture many months, learns French and acts as Tivii’s translator. Through their interactions, Tivii regains self-esteem and energy, taking a fatherly interest in stoking the child’s lapsed knowledge of traditional customs and myths.

Director: Benoît Pilon

Thursday, March 1
5:00 PM

In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman - United States, Short, 26 minutes

In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman is a moving testament to the courage and fortitude of thousands of young Navajo women and their children who were subjected to the Longest Walk and cruel imprisonment at Fort Sumner, New Mexico in the 1860s. This short is the remarkable creation of a 15-year-old Navajo woman.

Director: Camille Manybeads Tso (Navajo)

Grab - United States, Documentary, 56 minutes

Grab is an intimate portrait of three families preparing for Grab Day – a 300-year-old tradition celebrated by residents of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico where traditional Native and contemporary Western cultures meet. In this community-wide prayer of abundance, thanksgiving, and renewal, residents honor individual family members by throwing food items and gifts from the rooftops of their homes to community members below.

Director: Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo)

Thursday, March 1
8:00 PM

Vistas: Button Blanket - Canada, Short, 4 minutes

This impressionistic documentary looks at the creation of a button blanket by integrating the performance of a traditional dance with the art of the west coast Heiltsuk people.

Director: Zoe Leigh Hopkins (Heiltsuk/Mohawk)

Smokin’ Fish - United States, Documentary, 81 minutes

Cory Mann is a quirky Tlingit businessman in Juneau, Alaska who gets hungry for smoked salmon and nostalgic for his childhood, and decides to spend a summer smoking fish at his family’s traditional fish camp in the Alaskan backcountry. Smokin’ Fish tells the story of one man’s quest to navigate the messy zone of collision where the modern world meets an ancient culture.

Directors: Cory Mann (Tlingit) and Luke Griswold-Tergis

Friday, March 2
5:00 PM

SHORT FILMS: PROTECTING MOTHER EARTH

Los Derechos de la Pachamama (The Rights of Mother Earth) - Peru, Short, 20 minutes

Recognizing the importance of restoring their cultural traditions to honor and respect the world we live in, people from five diverse Peruvian communities deal with the effects of climate change and pressure to use harmful chemicals in their agricultural practices. Villagers give their perspectives on the need to recognize and respect the rights of Mother Earth as a living entity.

Produced by Sallqavideastas and InsightShare Latin America

Elderly Words: Who Threatens the Waters? - Colombia, Short, 7 minutes

Traditional indigenous authorities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region of northern Colombia discuss the environmental crisis affecting mountain snows and water of the region.

Directors: Amado Villafaña (Arhuaco), Saúl Gil (Wiwa), and Silvestre Gil Zarbata (Kogui)

Samaqan/Water Stories: Remembering Celilo Falls
(Parts 1 & 2) - Canada, Short, 44 minutes

Indigenous people of North America have always had a sacred relationship with water. This two-part series shows their perspective on this most precious resource – a resource to be protected, not exploited.

Part 1 of the series tells how The Dalles Dam drowned Celilo Falls on the lower Columbia River, affecting the Nez Perce, Klickitat, and other Tribal groups and the salmon migration. In Part 2, we see how the Columbia River dams have challenged the survival of the salmon, and what has been done to mitigate the dramatic change.

Directors: Jeff Bear (Maliseet/Canada First Nations) and Marianne Jones (Haida/Canada First Nations)

Sisa Ñambi (The Trail of Flowers) - Ecuador, Short, 25 minutes

The Sarayaku Kichwa of the south-central Ecuadorean Amazon are struggling to maintain their territory, where multinational corporations seek to extract oil, gold, and tropical hardwoods. Sisa Ñambi documents their effort to mark their land off-limits to exploitation with a 333,000-acre border of flowering, medicinal, and edible plants.

Director: Erberto Gualinga (Sarayaku Kichwa)

Friday, March 2
8:00 PM

Off the Rez - United States, Documentary, 86 minutes

Off the Rez is the story of a Native American family living on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. On behalf of one of their eight children, the family leaves the reservation to pursue the American dream of their 16-year-old daughter who aspires to be a champion high school basketball player. Four generations of strong Native American women from the Umatilla Nation struggle together to preserve their traditions with the unforgiving world of big-time American high school sports.

Director: Jonathan Hock

Saturday, March 3
5:00 PM

A Good Day to Die - United States, Documentary, 92 minutes

This film offers an intimate look at the life of Dennis Banks who, in 1968, co-founded the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) to call attention to the plight of urban Indians in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A Good Day to Die chronicles his early experiences in boarding school through military service in Japan, his transformative experience in Stillwater State Prison, and subsequent founding of A.I.M. – a movement of confrontational actions in Washington, DC, Custer, South Dakota, and Wounded Knee that changed the lives of American Indians forever.

Directors: David Mueller and Lynn Salt (Choctaw)

Saturday, March 3
8:00 PM

Here I Am - Australia, Feature, 91 minutes

This is the story of Karen, a beautiful young Aboriginal woman with a dark past. Fresh out of prison, she finds herself on the streets with an intense desire to turn her life around, but no one to call for help. Eventually, Karen finds a haven at a shelter for Aboriginal women like her and begins the painful journey of reconnecting with her estranged mother and young daughter. She is soon propelled to face the most difficult truths of her life.

Director: Beck Cole (First Australians)

Sunday, March 4
5:00 PM

VISIONARIES: SHORT FILMS BY NATIVE DIRECTORS

Eagle vs. Sparrow - Canada, Short, 10 minutes

An Anishinabek legend translated to film by youth artists working with mentoring filmmakers, Eagle vs. Sparrow is about the traditional grandfather teaching of “humility.”

Director: Michelle Derosier (Ojibwe)

VISTAS: The Visit - Canada, Short, 4 minutes

The charming true story of an encounter between extraterrestrials and a Cree family is retold in this film animation.

Director: Lisa Jackson (Ojibwe)

Tonto Plays Himself - United States, Short, 23 minutes

A young man who lives for the movies – except Westerns – discovers he has a personal connection to them through his cousin, an actor during the 1930s, 40s, and early 50s. Filmmaker Jacob Floyd confronts his own anxieties about representations of Native Americans in film as he explores the amazing career of Victor Daniels, also known as Chief Thundercloud.

Director: Jacob Floyd (Creek/Cherokee)

Bear Tung - Canada, Short, 9 minutes

An exploration of the relationship between animals and people brings a Native hunter together with his prey at a press conference in the North woods.

Director: Travis Shilling (Ojibwe)

Cepanvkuce Tutcenen (Three Little Boys) - United States, Short, 12
minutes

Three young boys accompany their uncle to church and find out just how difficult it is to channel divine behavior.

Director: Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek)

Tama Tū (Sons of Tū: The God of War) - New Zealand, Short, 17 minutes

Six Maori soldiers of the 28 Battalion wait for night to fall in a ruined Italian home. Forced into silence, they keep themselves amused like any boys would – with jokes and laughter. As they try to ignore the reminders of war around them, a tohu (sign) brings them back to the world of the dying. They gather to say a karakia (prayer) to unite their spirits before they head back into the dark of war. This is a film about the vitality of life.

Director: Taika Waititi (Maori)

Sunday, March 4
8:00 PM

Ebony Society - New Zealand, Short, 13 minutes

Two kids up to no-good break into a house on Christmas Eve only to find themselves confronted with an unexpected situation.

Director: Tammy Davis (Maori)

The Strength of Water - New Zealand, Feature, 86 minutes

Ten-year-old twins Kimi and Melody live happily in an isolated Maori coastal community delivering eggs for their parents and playing with their pet hen until Tai, an enigmatic stranger, arrives and precipitates a terrible incident which forces the twins apart. While the community punishes Tai, Kimi acts out his heartbreaking loneliness in destructive, angry ways while looking after the Melody that only he can see. Only Kimi’s belief in his sister can save him.

Director: Armagan Ballantyne
Writer: Briar Grace-Smith (Maori)