By Phoebe Farris (Powhatan-Pamunkey)
The Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival held its annual celebration of Indigenous movie in Richmond, Virginia, from November 17-19, 2023, amplifying the contributions of Native Individuals, First Nations, and Indigenous Peoples across the globe in native, unbiased, nonprofit, and business movie. Its movies, panel discussions, and Q&As showcased tales and stimulated deep conversations which are without delay related to particular Indigenous lives and all of humanity.
Documentaries, animation, horror, science fiction, and motion thrillers have been among the genres represented on the pageant, with movies spanning Indigenous experiences of previous, current, and future. Among the many movies screened have been: “Rabbit Tales” (2023), starring Cherokee actor Wes Studi; “American Masters:Zitka’la-SA: Trailblazing American Indian Composer and Author” (2020); “Deserted: Angelique’s Isle” (2017); “The Man Beside the Masks” (2000); “Native America – Episode One” (2023); “Pocahontas: The Actual Story” (2021), directed and produced by Vincent Schilling (Akwesasne Mohawk); “Gakaabikaang: Indigenous Voices within the Twin Cities Riots of 2020 and 2022 by journalist Darren Thompson (Ojibwe/Tohono O’ddham); “seventh Era” (2017), produced by Jim Warne (Oglala Lakota); “Bear in mind the Youngsters” (2022), additionally by Warne; and “A’nimas (Spirits)” (2023), directed by Federico Cuatlacuatl.
Federico Cuatlacuatl
The theme of “strolling in two worlds” spanned a number of of the movies. This time period often refers to individuals of blended Indigenous and European ancestry, however right here the movies targeted on problems with id for Indigenous folks of blended Native American and First Nations ancestry whose parentage included one guardian who was Indigenous and one other who was an individual of colour however not Indigenous to the Americas. For instance, the 2023 documentary “Warrior Up” follows 17-year-old Talon Pascal from the L’ilwat First Nation in British Columbia, Canada. An professional in making arrowheads, flintknapping, looking on horseback, archery, and constructing pit homes, Pascal lives along with his First Nations father and Japanese mom. The movie highlights Pascal’s blended heritage and his embrace of the 2 cultures.
Elizabeth Hill (Mohawk) singer and composer.
“Reward of Worry” (2023), produced, written, and directed by Jack Kohler (Hoopa), doesn’t overtly deal with the complexities of race or blended id. As a substitute, the movie references it visually with a solid of Native American actors who’ve pores and skin tones spanning white to darkish brown and hair starting from straight to curly. The movie is a fictionalized account primarily based on the true experiences of younger Indigenous girls who’ve turn out to be victims of intercourse trafficking and bodily abuse, witnesses to murders or homicide victims themselves, and people who have disappeared. These points are seen via the teenage protagonist, who’s attempting to construct a brand new life after witnessing her mom’s homicide and being trapped in a gang.
Jhane Myers (Comanche), producer of the featured movie “ Prey”, the primary Native centered movie within the “Predator” franchise movie collection.
“The Weight,” a tribute to musician Robbie Robertson (Mohawk/Cayuga), 1943-2023, produced by Taking part in for Change, kicked off opening evening with a bang. That includes former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr together with Robertson, an authentic member of The Band, musicians from Nepal, Argentina, Bahrain, the Congo, Spain, Italy, Japan, and Hawai’i performed their interpretations of Robertson’s music utilizing conventional devices from their cultures. The quick movie “Black Indians: We Are All Linked” (2021), written, directed, and produced by Shilling, included transient interviews with Harold Caldwell, a conventional dancer of Gros Ventre, Muskogee, and Black heritage, and Dr. Arica Coleman, who’s Rappahannock and Black, at a powwow. Each have been wearing powwow regalia. Dr. Coleman is a professor of Black American Research on the College of Delaware and the writer of the e book, “That the Blood Keep Pure: African Individuals, Native Individuals, and the Predicament of Race and Identification in Virginia.” It was stunning that not one of the questions directed at Coleman talked about her e book, which is broadly learn in academia, and as a substitute targeted on her hair; a severe subject researched by a severe girl scholar was diminished to feedback about her look.
L-R: Sam Bearpaw (Apache) and filmmaker Shelley Niro (Mohawk), movie pageant board of administrators members.
Famend author, producer, and director Shelley Niro (Mohawk) introduced “Cafe Daughter” (2023), impressed by true occasions within the Nineteen Fifties-60s regarding a younger woman named Yvette Wong, who’s of blended Chinese language and Cree heritage. As a toddler, Wong and her brother don’t absolutely perceive why their Cree mom discourages them from figuring out as half Cree and restricts their visits to their kin who stay on a reservation. Though the household faces racial discrimination and violence as Chinese language-Canadian restaurant house owners, their maternal Cree household is threatened with much more dire potential penalties resulting from Canadian legal guidelines impacting households residing on reservations. The precise identify of the woman that Niro, and Kenneth T. Williams, whose play impressed Niro’s movie, is Lillian Dyck, a retired Canadian senator, neuroscientist, and advocate for Indigenous girls who turned the primary girl First Nations senator in Canada and the primary Canadian-born Chinese language senator. “Cafe Daughter” is inspiring due to the robust appearing of the solid and the achievements and success of each the fictional Wong and the real-life Dyck, whose image seems on the finish of the movie. The movie additionally highlighted how folks of varied non-European Canadian heritage have been discriminated in opposition to and confronted a hierarchy of acceptance and/or rejection by the Canadian authorities.
Warne (Oglala Lakota), educator, motivational speaker, retired skilled athlete, and producer of “seventh Era” (2017), introduced his movie and regaled the viewers with tales of his life story and private reflections on what it takes to be a grounded human being concerned in a single’s neighborhood and likewise serving to youth that may lead the following generations. His movie options Lakota Elders and neighborhood members in varied settings, similar to a preschool Lakota language immersion class and awards ceremonies. Problems with blended id, Tribal enrollment, and race will not be overtly mentioned; reasonably, much like Kohler, Warne visually captures the sweetness and variety of Twenty first-century Indigenous folks. As 4 fantastically attired Lakota younger girls sing within the Lakota language outdoors on the plains, viewers can respect their voices of satisfaction and envision the longer term for the seventh technology.
Filmmakers and visitors on the VIP closing reception. L-R: Bradby Brown, Xeneca Leclair, Sam Bearpaw, Frederico Cuatlacuatl, Jack Kohler, Jim Warne.
“Indigeneity Past the Southern Border” featured two movies introduced or directed by Cuatlacuatl, founder and director of the Rasquache Artist Residency in Puebla, Mexico. “Pobo Tzu” (2021), focuses on the 1982 Chichonal volcanic eruption and its impression on the Zoque neighborhood of Esquipulas Guayabal. Beneath the buried cities, the residents of Nueva Guayabal ponder the bones and the valuable gold and silver sacred artifacts of the Catholic Church buried in ash beneath. “Pobo Tzu” references a unique form of ethnic combination, one in all faith and spirituality. The Zoque neighborhood continued to observe a few of their conventional ceremonies whereas additionally embracing the faith of their colonizers, the Roman Catholic Church. Typically, conflicts emerge between those that really feel extra related to Piowachue (the spirit of the volcano) and people extra invested in a Christian worldview.
Actor Michael Horse (Yaqui) narrates the lifetime of Dennis Banks, a.okay.a. Nowa Cumig, within the riveting documentary, “Ojibwa Warrior” (2023), which chronicles Banks’ life as one of many founding members of the American Indian Motion. The movie elicits recollections of an period that noticed Black, Pink, and Brown Energy actions take heart stage within the U.S. and all over the world. “Ojibwa Warrior” takes viewers into points of Banks’ life past his better-known AIM activism and right into a extra nuanced understanding of a person who was delicate, reflective, non secular, and have become immersed in cultures outdoors of Native American beliefs, similar to these of Japan. Banks was stationed in Japan after World Conflict II, the place he discovered the language and fell in love with the nation, together with a Japanese girl named Michiko. They married, though Banks’ navy place made it an unlawful act. He was court-martialed, despatched dwelling, and never allowed to convey his pregnant spouse with him. The movie discusses his reluctance to observe navy orders to shoot and kill Buddhist protesters who have been offended on the U.S. navy for taking Japanese farmlands. Banks stated these Japanese protests have been his first experiences witnessing Indigenous resistance.
These revelations, new to most viewers, gave us a deeper understanding of among the life occasions that may later affect Banks’ activism of the Nineteen Sixties and 70s with fellow AIM leaders Clyde Bellecourt and Russell Means. The movie has footage of Banks with the late Harry Belafonte, who later met with AIM activists on the second Longest Stroll and launched them to Consultant John Conyers outdoors the Capitol constructing. Later in his life, Banks’ love of Japanese tradition led to enterprise partnerships with Masao and Hiroko Yamamoto and the export of American Indian meals. Banks additionally based the Nowa Cumig Institute, which sponsored academic seminars.
Though the taking of Alcatraz, the Custer Riots, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs takeover shouldn’t be minimized, Banks’ life encompassed greater than that. As Horse defined in the course of the Q&A following the movie, folks tried to vilify the Black Panthers and AIM. Nonetheless, the organizations weren’t began to advertise violence. They protected folks within the streets, fed folks, and helped them get off medicine. Horse said, ”Dennis Banks was an instance of what you do as a warrior.” Referencing one other AIM activist, Horse said, “Leonard Peltier remains to be in jail—one of many biggest injustices in America.”
–Phoebe Mills Farris, Ph.D. (Powhatan-Pamunkey) is a Purdue College Professor Emerita, photographer, and freelance artwork critic.
L-R: Filmmaker and actor Jim Warne (Oglala Lakota), Competition Director Bradby Brown (Pamunkey) and Competition Board Member and MC Chief Lynette Allston (Nottoway).
