Past Festivals of American Indian Film

Every Film Festival includes a series of shorts created by the Digital Storytelling Project of the Yavapai-Apache Nation. This ongoing project of the Cultural Resource Center trains tribal members in videography and software to record their personal stories and remembrances. The Festival is very pleased to work closely with the Cultural Resource Center to provide an audience for these personal stories.

Second Annual Festival of Native American Film

The Only Good Indian
Set in Kansas during the early 1900s, a teen-aged Native American boy (newcomer Winter Fox Frank) is taken from his family and forced to attend a distant Indian "training" school to assimilate into White society. When he escapes to return to his family, Sam Franklin (Wes Studi), a bounty hunter of Cherokee descent, is hired to find and return him to the institution. Franklin, a former Indian scout for the U.S. Army, has renounced his Native heritage and has adopted the White Man's way of life, believing it's the only way for Indians to survive. Along the way, a tragic incident spurs Franklin's longtime nemesis, the famous "Indian Fighter" Sheriff Henry McCoy (J. Kenneth Campbell), to pursue both Franklin and the boy.

The Cave (Canada)
Set in 1961 in the Chilcotin Territory of Western Canada, The Cave recounts the story of a bear hunter who discovers a secret portal to the spirit world. This beautifully crafted film provides a powerful cinematic rendering of an authentic Tsilhqot’in oral story. In the Tsilhqot’in language with English subtitles.

Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey
Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey documents the annual Tribal Journeys of Pacific Northwest Coast Salish people. Indigenous tribes and First Nations from Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska follow their ancestral pathways through the waters of Puget Sound, Inside Passage and the Northwest Coast. Families and youth reconnect with the past and each other. Ancient songs, dances, regalia, ceremonies, and language were almost lost and are coming back.

Master Navajo Weavers
Director Mr. Carver was in attendance for a Q&A.
Navajo Master Weavers preview is an intimate portrait of elder Navajo weaver Clara Sherman from the Toadlena/Two Grey Hills Region, the most prestigious and identifiable region for Navajo rug weaving from the last century. Navajo Master Weavers reveals the connection between Navajo rugs and the inherently charming people who spend their lives creating these prized, and highly valued textiles. This work intends to present a unique perspective on this special group of Native Americans and their contributions to an enduring art before they are lost to the ages. Featured music by R. Carlos Nakai (Navajo) and poetry by Luci Tapahonso (Navajo).

Raven Tales: Bald Eagle (Canada)
All the kids who are walking along with Eagle one day ask him why he is bald. Eagle tells them as long as they don’t tell anyone else, he will tell them how he came to look like he does. He tells them about the world before the light, the Great Spirit called Eagle and Raven to come and carry him across the world for he wished to see it. They decide to visit Frog, who tells them a story of how the world will one day be filled with light and people. The Great Spirit asks frog to show him where all this will happen, and they all climb on top of Eagle to get there.

The Beginning They Told
In the beginning times, the animals living in the sky vault work together to bring about the creation of the earth from a tiny piece of mud.

In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman
In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman is about a 13 year-old Navajo filmmaker who finds her own strengths through interviewing her Grandmother about their ancestral history. She imagines what it would be like to be her Great-Great-Great-Grandmother, Yellow Woman, who lived through the Navajo Long Walk (1864 - 1868).

Camille Manybeads Tso (Navajo) learned the art of film making from the volunteer Indigenous youth media literacy collective, “Outta Your Backpack Media.” Camille has worked with OYBMedia since she was 9, and is currently the youngest youth mentor. Camille researched the time period, wrote a script of re-enactments of her family’s stories, recruited her cousins to help, made costumes, directed, filmed, acted, and edited this piece together. She even sang some of the songs in the soundtrack. The results are a beautiful film of the power of reclaiming oral histories. Performed by the descendants of Yellow Woman and filmed in many of the places where the events took place.

Pow Wow Dreams
Powwow Dreams tells the story of four sisters (played by Thirza Defoe, Elena Finney, Princess Lucaj and Delanna Studi) who live life on the road going from powwow to powwow, but face a crisis when one of the sisters decides to leave the group.

Ancestor Eyes
After getting sick, a young Native American woman, Willa, returns to her mother's home where they both must come to terms with her illness. Willa's mother, who had been a long time 'shut in', begins venturing outside with her camcorder, taping the sunrise and mountains, bringing the outside world in to the bed ridden Willa. Pain turns into a source of inspiration, igniting her mother's gift for storytelling and ultimately paving a path of magical transformations.

The Migration
In a future wracked by global warming, an authoritarian government forces siblings to flee with seeds that may save the world. “‘The Migration’ is a worst-case scenario,” Harjo said, “but there is always that glimmer of hope. I consider it a futuristic ecological myth.” Director Sydney Freeland liked the idea of history repeating itself. “This could’ve taken place 100 years ago. In the 1800s, what happened to the Natives was an apocalypse.”

Liminality
A young Indian man gets more than he bargained for when he enters a reservation bar looking for help against a gang of vampire bikers. Writer Migizi Pensoneau has wanted to be a filmmaker since he yearned to remake “The Blob” at age 6. He’s worked on films for a production company, the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Sundance Institute. He also contributed to the fifth season of ABC’s “Alias” as part of a fellowship program. When he learned of this year’s “grindhouse” theme from Creative Spirit’s James Lujan, he pitched Lujan an idea about a wanderer, a bar, bikers and vampires. “He didn’t think I could fit that all in,” Pensoneau said, “so I said, ‘Yeah, I can.’” The result was “Liminality,” which means “the condition of being on a threshold or at the beginning of a process.”

First Annual Festival of Native American Film

Reel Injun
Hollywood has made over 4000 films about Native people; over 100 years of movies defining how Indians are seen by the world. Reel Injun takes an entertaining and insightful look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of North American Natives through the history of cinema. Travelling through the heartland of America, Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond looks at how the myth of “the Injun” has influenced the world’s understanding – and misunderstanding – of Natives. With candid interviews with directors, writers, actors and activists, including Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch, Robbie Robertson, Sacheen Littlefeather, John Trudell and Russell Means, clips from hundreds of classic and recent films, including Stagecoach, Little Big Man, The Outlaw Josey Wales, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Atanarjuat the Fast Runner, Reel Injun traces the evolution of cinema’s depiction of Native people from the silent film era to today.

The film’s producer, Christina Fonwill, was present for a Q&A session following the film.

A Gift From Talking God: The Story of the Navajo Churro
A documentary describing the near extinction of the Churro sheep and how it was brought back to become a vital part of the Navajo cultural life and rug-making activities.

Turquoise Rose
From the award winning Holt Hamilton Productions comes the film that has taken the Navajo Nation by surprise. The young and charming Turquoise Roanhorse turns down a once in a lifetime trip to Europe with her best friend. This choice chases her back to the reservation where she finds herself taking care of her ailing grandmother and in the process falls in love with a rez boy. The beauty of the people and the land combine to make this film a memorable journey that will find its way into your heart.

The American West: On The Road With Michael Blake
Michael Blake, Academy Award® winning screenwriter and author of Dances With Wolves, showed and discussed this film, directed by Emmy Award® winner John Carver, in which he embarks on a road trip through the American West exploring historic battle sites and places of conflict between Whites and Indians. Through the unique lens of this impassioned storyteller, viewers gain a fresh look at the people, events and landscapes that shaped our country.

Sandpainting Healing with Walking Thunder
Traditional Navajo medicine woman, Walking Thunder, tells her life story and describes her healing methods using native plants, sand paintings, and other medicinal ways. As a practitioner of the peyote ceremony, she shares her indigenous understanding of the world of spirits evoked by this botanical sacrament.

Before Tomorrow (Inuit - Canada)
This film, set in 1840, is the story of an Inuit woman who demonstrates that human dignity is at the core of life from beginning to end, as she faces with her grandson the ultimate challenge of survival. The film was shot in remote locations near the community of Puvirnituq, Nunavik (northern Quebec) over four separate periods in order to capture the seasons from June through December. The film is in the Inuit language with English subtitles.

CHE AH CHI The History of Boynton Canyon
CHE AH CHI, the Apache name for a mysterious red rock canyon near Sedona is a place of ancient stories. The film features interviews with tribal elders who reveal stories usually reserved for their own storytelling circles. The elders offer deep insights into their respective cultures, detailing the sorrow of forced removal from their homelands, and demonstrating a cultural wisdom able to embrace all those that can respect the sacred canyon.

American Outrage
Carrie and Mary Dann are feisty elderly Western Shoshone sisters who live and ranch in north central Nevada. They have always grazed their livestock on the range outside their ranch, land recognized by the U.S. as Western Shoshone in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. In 1974, the U.S. sued the Dann sisters for trespassing on U.S. public land without a permit. Their dispute swept to the U. S. Supreme Court and eventually to the United Nations. Contrasting the Dann’s personal lives and political actions, the film examines why the United States would spend millions prosecuting two elderly women grazing a few hundred horses and cows.

Bolivia: Los Ricos (The Rich)
Music video of the Afro-Bolivian youth from several communities, expressing their vivacity and happiness through their music and dance but at the same time showing the disparity between poor and rich.

Mexico-Oaxaca:  El Poquito de Tanta Verdad (A Little Piece of the Truth)
In the summer of 2006, a popular non-violent uprising exploded in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Some called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century. It was also the first time in Oaxaca’s history that indigenous media cooperatives and distinct internet collectives combined to cover thousands of teachers on strike and the takeover of 14 radios and one television station by the leaders, organizing and mobilizing the protestors through medias. This special program is a unique combination of media practices and political activism.

The Last Trek
Navajo Elder Helena Bitsilly is one of the few Navajo people who still make the long and arduous journey on foot twice a year to take their sheep to distant grazing lands. The filmmaker follows Bitsilly on her last trek.

Poison Wind
This documentary tells the story of a corrupt government's greed and a policy of destruction aimed at the aboriginal homelands of indigenous peoples from the 1950's. This documentary was filmed in the Desert Southwest and focuses on lives being destroyed by the horror of uranium mining.

Sikumi - In Inupiaq with English subtitles
An Inuit hunter drives his dog team out on the frozen Arctic Ocean in search of seals, but instead, he becomes a witness to murder and knows both victim and the killer.