NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH
- Oct. 28, 2021

This month, and all year round, is a good time to rethink how we commemorate history, past and present.

Please continue to amplify the work of Indigenous filmmakers, including but not limited to the features below, by some of our talented members:

Beans by Tracey Deer

Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and reckless adolescence; forced to grow up fast and become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.

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Cocaine Prison by Violeta Ayala

A look inside a notorious Bolivian prison helps to provide insight into the country's relationship with cocaine.

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Deidra & Laney Rob a Train by Sydney Freeland

After their mother ends up in jail, two sisters turn to train robbery in order to support their family.

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Fruits of Labor by Emily Cohen IbaƱez

Ashley, a Mexican-American teenager living in California, dreams of graduating high school and going to college. But when ICE raids threaten her family, Ashley is forced to become the breadwinner, working days in the strawberry fields and nights at a food processing company.

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Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu

This story reveals the healing power of four mysterious boulder on Waikiki Beach - and the legendary dual female and male spirits within them.

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Mohawk Girls by Tracey Deer

Four twenty-something Indigenous women try to find their place in the world and try to find love; but in a small community where friends have dated everyone on the rez, or the hot new guy turns out to be a cousin, it's not that simple.

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Out of State by Ciara Lacy

After a cultural transformation in an Arizona prison, two Hawaiian men return to Hawaii to start life over and wrestle with pressures from the outside world.

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Return of the Buffalo by Suzan Satterfield

This film honors both the Lakota people on the Rosebud Reservation and their deep cultural connection to the Tatonka, or "buffalo people," throughout their history. The film weaves the buffalos' relationship to the land and the Lakota people as so deeply intertwined that they must be seen as a whole web of life. Their return as a free ranging herd is the long-held dream of Wizipan Little Elk, the leader of RedCo. Little Elk strongly believes that the return of the buffalo will help restore the Lakota people's cultural, spiritual, and economic strength. His vision is supported by many partners, and an early step in a long journey toward healing.

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Please also take a moment to acknowledge what native land you are on and explore additional resources here.