Six Movies to Watch for Native American Heritage Month
Curating space for Native creativity to be celebrated is one of the many forms of resistance. Indigenous cultures everywhere embrace storytelling in order to keep traditions alive. Many different Native filmmakers and storytellers have embraced cinema in order to showcase our various ways of life and shift the narrative around what a ‘Native American’ really is.
This Native American Heritage Month, we’re highlighting a mix of six documentaries and fiction films that showcase relevant movements and commentary from all over Indian Country.
The best part? All of the movies mentioned are currently available for free on Kanopy (a streaming service that only requires a school email or local library card to access!)
Dadiwonisi: We Will Speak
by Schon Duncan and Michael McDermit
Dadiwonisi (We Will Speak) highlights the critical work of language activists, artists, youth, and elders who are now leading a growing movement of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the Cherokee language from the brink of extinction. The film also delves into the history of the Cherokee syllabary, the destructive assimilationist legacy of boarding schools, the lasting impacts of the Trail of Tears, and the ways in which members of the Cherokee tribe reconcile their relationship to American identity.
Bring Them Home (Aiskótáhkapiyaaya)
by Ivy MacDonald, Ivan MacDonald, and Daniel Glick
Bring Them Home tells the story of a small group of Blackfoot people and their mission to establish the first wild buffalo herd on their ancestral territory since the species’ near-extinction a century ago, an act that would restore the land, re-enliven traditional culture and bring much needed healing to their community.
Beans
by Tracey Deer
Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and reckless adolescence; forced to grow up fast and become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.
Gather
by Sanjay Rawal
Gather is an intimate portrait of the growing movement amongst Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide.
Barking Water
by Sterlin Harjo
Hoping to see his daughter and grandchild, a terminally ill man embarks on a road trip with his former lover.
Wild Indian
by Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.
Decades after covering up his classmate’s murder, Michael has moved on from his reservation and fractured past. When a man who shares his violent secret seeks vengeance, Michael goes to great lengths to protect his new life with his wife and boss from the demons of his past.
