native american

Each winter, when the lakes freeze over, a motley gang of professional wrestlers leaves Winnipeg on a one-of-a-kind wrestling trip through remote Indigenous communities of Northern Manitoba. Wrestling insiders call it the “Death Tour” – both for the physical hardships endured on the road and the emotional toll it takes on those who experience it. Famous for its star-studded alumni, the trip offers wrestlers a rare taste of fame and a chance to see if they have what it takes to make it in professional wrestling. But the tour goes both ways: as the wrestlers develop their skills they also provide entertainment for the communities in the dead of winter and form personal connections with audience members, especially the kids. From the taunting and body slams comes a warm documentary that travels through Canada’s frozen North and into the wrestlers’ minds as they battle the elements, each other, and the impacts of North America’s colonial past.

Directing Award: US Documentary, Sundance Film Festival. In 2021 an investigation of unmarked graves at an Indian residential school and long-circulating, long-denied, rumors of physical and sexual abuse at St. Joseph’s Mission, a Catholic-run Indigenous boarding school that operated until 1981 in British Columbia, ignite a reckoning in the lives of survivors and their descendants, including the film’s co-director whose father was born—and nearly buried—at the school. Both intimate and epic, Sugarcane follows co-director Julian Brave NoiseCat and others as the investigation ranges from the school grounds to the Vatican. Drawing on their backgrounds in activism and journalism — as well as NoiseCat’s own personal connection to the story and community — the filmmakers deftly weave together multiple strands to form this compelling, heartbreaking narrative. Demonstrating unparalleled humanity, compassion, and grace for the affected Indigenous communities in North America, their powerful documentary operates from a place of pure and total empathy. At the same time, NoiseCat and Kassie recognize the resilience of the survivors and their descendants, and their unflagging determination to seek answers to long-buried secrets.

TOWN DESTROYER explores the ways we look at art and history at a time of racial reckoning. The story focuses on a dispute over historic murals depicting the life of George Washington: slaveowner, general, land speculator, President, and a man Seneca leaders called “Town Destroyer” after he ordered their villages destroyed during the Revolutionary War. The murals, at San Francisco’s George Washington High School, were painted in 1936 by left-wing artist Victor Arnautoff, a student of Diego Rivera. The murals both praise Washington and–rare for the time—critically depict him overseeing his slaves and directing the bloody seizure of Native lands. Most controversial is a provocative image of a dead Indian–life-size, eye-level, and at the center of the school. Opponents of the murals–led by Native American parents–demand the School Board order them painted over. For them, the murals’ graphic depictions of slavery and genocide are racist and harm students, Native students in particular. Defenders of the murals warn of the dangers of censoring priceless works of art, and urge the Board to ‘teach the murals.’ Heated debates spill into the community and make national headlines.

Standing Rock was the spark that ignited the worldwide environmental movement that we know today, With the leaders of this movement- Bernie Sanders, Greta Thunberg, and AOC all giving credit to Standing Rock as the catalyst for the movement and also the inspiration for the Green New Deal. With the recently released AOC documentary ‘Knock Down the House’ and the upcoming ‘Greta vs Climate’ doc this is an amazing moment for the release of ‘Akicita’ shedding light on the real roots of the climate movement. All too often the people on the ground doing the real work are overshadowed by people with megaphones.

‘Akicita’ is the only Indigenous made film out of the Standing Rock occupation. The film shows the inner-workings of a movement never seen before on film. Serving as a blueprint on how non-violent direct action and the tactics utilized can cost the fossil fuel industry billions of dollars and, most importantly, spotlighting the Indigenous people who are at the forefront of every environmental battle, since their homelands are the most affected.

Going into the 2020 Election cycle, the only Native doc from Standing Rock shows Native Activists as the badass frontliners that they are, not the stereotypes you normally see in media. With over 12,000 people and 300 tribes united at its peak, Standing Rock was the largest Indigenous resistance in history…

Synopsis: Standing Rock, 2016: the largest Native American occupation since Wounded Knee, thousands of activists, environmentalists, and militarized police descend on the Dakota Access Pipeline, in a standoff between Big Oil and a new generation of native warriors. Embedded in the movement, native activist and filmmaker Cody Lucich chronicles the sweeping struggle in stunning clarity, as the forces battle through summer to bitter winter, capturing the spirit and havoc of an uprising.

It’s 1978 and Margo Crane, a 15 year old part Native teen, must take to the Stark River on an odyssey. Akin to Huck Finn, this is a heroine like no other. Based on the best selling novel ONCE UPON A RIVER by Bonnie Jo Campbell.