It’s just another typical day at a rural elementary school on a reservation in Oklahoma. Little Chief, the school’s mascot, appears faded on the walls as a proud symbol of a rich and complicated history. It’s a world that is stacked against them, but Sharon shows up each day to guide her 5th grade students through it. Bear is having a particularly hard time, enduring challenges both at home and in the classroom. He is desperate to escape it all, and Sharon is left chasing a little boy who is running to nowhere.

E. Pauline Johnson was a powerful wordsmith who traveled the North American continent sometimes in vaudeville-esque stages to Britain. Here she confronted the king of England. She used her voice and words as a weapon against the effects of colonization. Her mother was British and her father was a Mohawk chief from the Six Nations of the Grand River. When she passed away her influence was strong and wide. She was a proud Mohawk/British woman. Her capacity for change towards the perception of Indigenous people in North America was the beginning for a long struggle.

Tsenacommacah, is what the Powhatan called their territory of Tidewater Virginia. Roughly translated as, “densely inhabited land”. An experiential recall takes form through the spiritual symbology of the region in this sensory short film. Ahone the Creator, comes from the rising sun. But there were other spirits as well—Okee, the trickster of Chaos. A dance unfolds between them…

Only the Earth and the Mountains interrogates the narrative of the settlement/colonization of the West by white pioneers and its implications to society today by examining the repercussions of the Sand Creek Massacre, in which more than 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho people were murdered by U.S. Cavalry troops on November 29, 1864. In speaking to the survivors’ descendants, it becomes clear that this event is a living, perpetual loss—one that should not be forgotten.

A post-apocalyptic film about two indigenous men existing in the aftermath of colonial America. Totems represents a slice of the sub-conscience mind of the modern day indigenous man. After 528 years, The Id (Ben Dupris) and the Ego (Ajuawak Kapashesit) must find a new way of existing in their colonized Turtle Island, territory of Seattle.

When Riley gets suspended from school, her mother sends her to spend a day with her grandmother. Riley is resistant at first, but the loving and strong nature of her grandmother opens Riley’s world as she learns more of her Diné culture and language.

On August 9, 2016, a young Cree man named Colten Boushie died from a gunshot to the back of his head after entering Gerald Stanley’s rural property with his friends. The jury’s subsequent acquittal of Stanley captured international attention, raising questions about racism embedded within Canada’s legal system and propelling Colten’s family to national and international stages in their pursuit of justice. Sensitively directed by Tasha Hubbard, nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up weaves a profound narrative encompassing the filmmaker’s own adoption, the stark history of colonialism on the Prairies, and a vision of a future where Indigenous children can live safely on their homelands.

Sisters Rising is a powerful feature documentary about six Native American women reclaiming personal & tribal sovereignty. Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault than all other American women. 1 in 3 Native women report having been raped during her lifetime and 86% of the offenses are committed by non-Native men. These perpetrators exploit gaps in tribal jurisdictional authority and target Native women as ‘safe victims’. SISTERS RISING follows six women who refuse to let this pattern of violence continue in the shadows: a tribal cop in the midst of the North Dakota oil boom, an attorney fighting to overturn restrictions on tribal sovereignty, an Indigenous women’s self-defense instructor, grassroots advocates working to influence legislative change, and the author of the first anti-sex trafficking code to be introduced to a reservation’s tribal court. Their stories shine an unflinching light on righting injustice onboth an individual and systemic level.

Native Christmas Song by Shoshoni Elder Oldhands