First Daughter and the Black Snake

The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.

For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska

In 1867, when the United States purchased the Alaska territory, the promise of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights didn't apply to Alaska Natives. Their struggle to win justice is one of the great, untold chapters of the American civil rights movement, culminating at the violent peak of World War II with the passage of one of the nation's first equal rights laws.

The Shaman's Apprentice

Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.

Ikátena

Incident at Oglala

On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a group of Indians. Although several men were charged with killing the agents, only one, Leonard Peltier, was found guilty. This film describes the events surrounding the shootout and suggests that Peltier was unjustly convicted.

Dislocation Blues

Filmed during the 2016 Standing Rock protests in South Dakota, Sky Hopinka's Dislocation Blues offers a portrait of the movement and its water protectors, refuting grand narratives and myth-making in favour of individual testimonials.

Local Heroes: Baseball on Capital Region Diamonds

'Local Heroes' combines exhaustive research, rare archival film footage, fascinating still photography and revealing original interviews to bring viewers a fill range of the area's diamond history, from its mythical beginnings with Ballston Spa native Abner Doubleday to Heritage Park in Colonie - and everything in between.

Indian Rights for Indian Women

Three intrepid women battle for Indigenous women's treaty rights.

maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore

An experimental look at the origin of the death myth of the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, following two people as they navigate their own relationships to the spirit world and a place in between life and death.

Deerfoot of the Diamond

In late 2021, Cleveland’s baseball team was reborn as the Guardians. This documentary, directed by Lance Edmands, chronicles the saga of that name change, which has its roots in a forgotten legend named Louis Sockalexis, and the tragedy that enveloped his story more than a century ago.

The Life and Legacy of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte

This short documentary tells the story of the life and legacy of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, an Omaha woman who became the first Native American physician.

David Beckham: Into the Unknown

This documentary chronicles David Beckham and his friends' unforgettable journey deep into the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Travelling by motorbike and boat, and guided by locals, he visits far-flung communities and tribes that live in this remote landscape.

Mitakuye Oyasin

Lakota people from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota describe the ongoing struggle of their people.

The Land is Ours

The Tlingit and Haida people of Alaska were confused by the idea of America “buying” the land they lived on from the Russians. They would be among the first native people to make a successful claim on their homeland and rights.

Buffalo Soldiers, Victorio and Manifest Destiny

A look into the 19th century American-Indian Wars, Manifest Destiny, and the conflicts between Apache tribes and the African-American Buffalo soldier regiments.

Pride of the Buffalo Soldier

African American soldiers throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries faced discrimination and segregation, yet many still chose to fight for their country.

Contrary Warriors: A Film of the Crow Tribe

Examines the impact a century of struggling for survival has on a native people. It weaves the Crow tribe's turbulent past with modern-day accounts from Robert Yellow-tail, a 97-year-old Crow leader and a major reason for the tribe's survival. Poverty and isolation combine with outside pressures to undermine the tribe, but they resist defeat as "Contrary Warriors," defying the odds.

As Long as the Rivers Run

Examines the violence and civil disobedience leading up to the hallmark decision in U.S. v. Washington, with particular reference to the Nisqually Indians of Frank's Landing in Washington.

War Dance

Three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda compete in their country's national music and dance festival.

Anti-Objects, or Space Without Path or Boundary

The title of this video, taken from the texts of the architect Kengo Kuma, suggests a way of looking at everything as “interconnected and intertwined” - such as the historical and the present and the tool and the artifact. Images and representations of two structures in the Portland Metropolitan Area that have direct and complicated connections to the Chinookan people who inhabit(ed) the land are woven with audio tapes of one of the last speakers of chinuk wawa, the Chinookan creole. These localities of matter resist their reduction into objects, and call anew for space and time given to wandering as a deliberate act, and the empowerment of shared utility.