Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting
2021
8
Two brothers from the Onondaga Nation pursue their dreams of playing lacrosse for national powerhouse Syracuse University. The obstacles in their way are frequent and daunting, but their love for the game, each other, and their family’s unyielding determination, propels these youth towards their dream.
Examining the movement that is ending the use of Native American names, logos, and mascots in the world of sports and beyond.
Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting
2021
8
An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.
Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier
1991
0
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.
First Daughter and the Black Snake
2017
5
The last surviving Native Americans on Long Island are the focus of The Lost Spirits. The film chronicles their struggles as an indigenous people to maintain their identity amidst relentless modernization and a heartless bureaucracy.
The Lost Spirits
2009
0
After enduring eleven years as one of the most dominant and controversial players in a professional lacrosse league that was anything but professional, Paul Rabil decides to take the game into his own hands. Partnering with his brother Mike Rabil, the Rabil brothers attempt to raise the capital, poach the top players, fight off lawsuits, and persevere through a global pandemic to change the trajectory of professional sports by launching the Premier Lacrosse League. To complicate matters, Paul must navigate the politics of playing in the league that he also runs.
Fate of a Sport
2022
10
Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.
The Shaman's Apprentice
2001
0
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.
Incident at Oglala
1992
7
Following four Lakota families over three years, Homeland explores what it takes for the Lakota community to build a better future in the face of tribal and government corruption, scarce housing, unemployment, and alcoholism. Intimate interviews with a spiritual leader, a grandmother, an artist, and a community activist from South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation reveal how each survives through family ties, cultural tradition, humor, and a palpable yearning for self-reliance and personal freedom.
Homeland
2000
8
Documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history, a little-known story built around the incredible lives and careers of the some of the greatest music legends.
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
2017
7
At the farthest edge of the Navajo Nation, the purpose and future of the most remote high school in the continental United States is in question while three Indigenous youth grapple with ambitious dreams, family responsibilities, and the isolated nature of their community.
Scenes from the Glittering World
2021
0
The US detonated 67 nuclear weapons over the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War, the consequences of which still reverberate down four generations to today. "NUKED," is a timely new feature documentary focussing on the human victims of the nuclear arms race, tracing the displaced Bikinian's ongoing struggle for justice and survival even as climate change poses a new existential threat. Using carefully restored archival footage to resurrect contemporaneous islanders’ voices and juxtaposing these with the full, awesome fury of the nuclear detonations, NUKED starkly contrasts the official record with the lived experience of the Bikinians themselves, serving as an important counterpoint to this summer’s Oppenheimer.
NUKED
2023
7
The story of an American hero and the Cherokee Nation's first woman Principal Chief who humbly defied all odds to give a voice to the voiceless.
Mankiller
2017
6
Sean and Adrian, a Two-Spirit couple, are determined to rewrite the rules of Native American culture through their participation in the “Sweetheart Dance.” This celebratory contest is held at powwows across the country, primarily for heterosexual couples … until now.
Sweetheart Dancers
2019
9
A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances, and politics.
Trudell
2005
5
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.
Dislocation Blues
2017
5
Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.
Broken Rainbow
1985
5
Told from the Native American perspective, this documentary will uncover the dark history of the U.S. government and will give a voice to the countless Indian children forced through the system.
Our Spirits Don't Speak English
2008
0
When gang leader Rob Brown is sentenced to prison for a fifth time, he must confront his role in bringing violent drug culture into his beloved American Indian community in northern Minnesota. As Rob reckons with his past, his seventeen-year-old protégé, Kevin, dreams of the future: becoming the most powerful and feared Native gangster on the reservation.
The Seventh Fire
2015
6
The astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why do they do it? Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands?
The Warrior Tradition
2019
0
In this evocative meditation, a disturbing link is made between the resource extraction industries’ exploitation of the land and violence inflicted on Indigenous women and girls. Or, as one young woman testifies, “Just as the land is being used, these women are being used.”
Nuuca
2018
7