BREAKING THE CIRCLE: THE THREAT OF GANGS IN INDIAN COUNTRY
Producer: Mark Anthony Rolo (Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe)
Exploring increasing urban gang activity within tribal communities, Breaking the Circle also examines how Indian communities confront violence, drugs and other anti-social behavior that threatens Native American youth and the future of Indian Country.
CASINO NATION
Producers: Terry Jones (Seneca), Paul Wilson, Laure Sullivan Coming to POV 2010
The film Casino Nation is a snapshot of a Native American tribe at a crossroads. After having endured a long and bloody struggle over tribal gaming, the Seneca Nation of Indians is now in the casino business. In production now, this film highlights the impact of sudden prosperity on this small sovereign nation that has historically struggled with crushing poverty. Will the distinctive culture and identity of these native people be able to withstand the onslaught of American culture’s promise of big and easy money? And will the tribe be able to heal the deep rifts created by conflict over casinos? The film explores these and other issues facing the Senecas during this critical time of sweeping change.
FOR THE RIGHTS OF ALL: ENDING JIM CROW IN ALASKA
Producer: Jeffry Silverman, Blueberry Production Fall 2009
This program tells the true-life story of an extraordinary Alaskan woman who becomes an unlikely hero in the fight for civil rights. Elizabeth Peratrovich—a young, unassuming Tlingit Indian mother of three testified before the Alaska State Senate in 1945 and swayed the floor vote with her compelling testimony in favor of the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill, the first civil rights bill passed in the United States since the Civil War.
In Games of the North, Director Jonathon Stanton follows the lives of four Native Alaskan athletes as they compete in the traditional sports of their ancestors. Mental strength and physical endurance are tested with contests of high kicking to seal hopping. But such games are more than sport—they instill a survival instinct for living in the Arctic, building perseverance, strength and Alaska Native values.
GOOD MEAT
Producers: Sam Hurst, Larry Pourier (Oglala Lakota)
Beau LeBeau (Oglala Lakota) is obese. Several members of his family are obese, and his mother died last year from diabetes. This is a real-time movie that documents his journey to get healthy by converting to a traditional Lakota diet centered on buffalo and native foods. LeBeau will be under the supervision of Dr. Kevin Weiland as he explores the history and culture of the modern reservation.
GRAB
Producer: Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo) Fall 2010
A feature documentary that explores the Grab Day culture in the villages of Laguna Pueblo, as told by one family as they prepare for the annual event.
HORSE TRIBE
Producer: Janet Kern
Horse Tribe features the renaissance of the horse culture for which the Nez Perce have been legendary. In conjunction with creating a new breed of horse which bears their name, they have established employment, academic and equestrian programs for their children. Combining cinema verite, dreamlike horse imagery and video shot by Nez Perce children, Horse Tribe is an innovative film about an important story - the role of heritage in community, commerce, and character.
JIM THORPE: THE WORLD'S GREATEST ATHLETE Producer: Tom Weidlinger Fall 2009 APT
A biography of the athlete who became a sports icon in the first half of the 20th century, Jim Thorpe represents one of the greatest machines known to man. Beginning with Thorpe’s boyhood at the Sac and Fox Nation to his rise to athletic stardom at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the story follows Thorpe as he won two gold medals at the 1912 Summer Olympics to his fall from grace in the eyes of the amateur athletic establishment, and his rebound in professional baseball and football.
Thorpe retired from pro sports at age 41 just before the stock market crash of 1929. Later becoming a representative for Indian extras in Hollywood, Thorpe also fought for equal pay for Native Americans in the movies and crisscrossed the nation advocating for Indian self-determination in the 1940s.
Journey Home is a one-hour documentary that will provide a new perspective about the boarding school experience by revealing reforms in government policies made by those who attended American Indian educational institutions. Thomas Sloan (Omaha) and Henry Roe Cloud (Winnebago) fought for civil rights, proper education and sovereignty.
LA DONNA HARRIS: INDIAN 101
Producer: Julianna Brannum (Comanche) Fall 2010
Comanche activist LaDonna Harris, who has led an extensive life of Indian political and social activism, is now passing her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging indigenous leaders.
LOSING GROUND
Producer: Jenni Monet (Laguna Pueblo) Fall 2010
The North Arctic landscape is changing rapidly—so too are the lives of Inupiat Natives living on tiny, vanishing island of Kivalina, Alaska. Many believe global warming is to blame but filmmakers show how one humble village fights to save their homeland under a cloud of doubt.
LOST TRIBES
Producer: Leighton Peterson Fall 2010
This documentary feature examines the quintessential American issues of free speech and ethnic pride and the ongoing Columbus Day Parade controversy in Denver. Tensions rise as Denver's Native and Italian-American communities publicly fight over race, history and what it means to be an "American."
NATIVE AMERICAN MARCHING BANDS
Producer: Cathleen O'Connell
The phrase "Native American music" may not invoke tubas and baton twirlers, but brass band music has been a part of Native culture for more than a century. Combining portraits of contemporary bands and archival material, the film offers an unexpected view into this surprising music scene.
NATIVE CENTURY
Producers: Leslie Clark, Brian Wescott (Athabascan/Yup'ik) and Roberta Grossman
Native Americans return from WWI to pursue freedom at home. Will Rogers finds stardom, Osages strike oil, Indians meet tourism and tribes create new governments, then another generation fights for the U.S. in WWII. NAPT funding will support scripting for episode two of the four-part series.
OSAGE MURDERS
Producers: Dan Bigbee (Commanche) and Lily Shangreaux (Oglala Lakota), Big Productions
In the 1920s the Osage were the wealthiest people in the world and there were plenty of people who wanted "their share". The Osage Murders is the story of an Osage family whose oil fortune was coveted by a local rancher and the plan he conceived to obtain it.
POWER PATHS
Producers: Bo Boudart, Norman Brown (Navajo) and Chris Philipp Independent Lens Fall 2009
An exploration of energy through the eyes of Native Americans as they reveal their quest to tap wind, solar, biomass and other power sources for their communities and cities across the country. From the Lakota Lands across the Great Plains to the Navajo and Hopi desert lands of the Southwest, "Power Paths" shows how tribes face fierce opposition in changing the energy habits of traditional fossil fuel dependent utilities and electric cooperatives.
RIVER OF RENEWAL
Producer: Jack Kohler (Yurok/Karuk/Hupa) Fall 2009
Jack Kohler journeys through California's Klamath River basin, which is in crisis over wild salmon and scarce water. River flow management that benefits utility companies, farmers and ranchers along the Klamath River have brought this vital eco-system to near collapse, endangering several species of wild salmon. Kohler travels through the country of his ancestors where he witnesses the contentious quest for balance between economics, environment, and sustaining the spiritual center of the Basin's Native inhabitants.
The history of lacrosse in North America is a rich and multi-layered one. Much more than a Native American ball and stick game, lacrosse is a cultural window into Native American communities and their historical relationship with each other and the dominant culture. Our goal is to develop a documentary that looks at the culture, history and resurfacing of lacrosse as it relates to Natives and Non-Natives.
THE SALMON PEOPLE
Producer: Luke Griswold-Tergis, Cory Mann (Tlingit) Fall 2010
A young Tlingit makes a pilgrimage to his ancestral home and is forced to confront the dichotomy between his history and the world he lives in. His personal life story parallels his culture's heart wrenching disintegration and struggle to revitalize itself.
TELEPHONE WARRIORS: THE STORY OF THE CHOCTAW CODE TALKERS
Producer: Valerie Red Horse
In 1918, not yet citizens of the U.S., Choctaw tribal members of the U.S. American Expeditionary Forces were asked to use their native language as a powerful tool against the German Forces in World War I, setting a precedent for code talking as an effective military weapon and establishing them as America's original Code Talkers.
TO BROOKLYN AND BACK: A MOHAWK JOURNEY Producers: Reaghan Tarbell (Mohawk) and Paul Rickard (Omuskego Cree)
Fall 2009 PBS Plus
In parallel stories, Mohawk filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell lives follows the steps of her late grandmother and interviews Mohawk women who helped build Little Caughnawaga, the legendary Mohawk ironworking community that lived in Brooklyn in the mid 1900s.
VIDEO LETTERS FROM PRISION
Producer: Milt Lee (Cheyenne River Sioux)
Following three young Lakota girls from the Pine Ridge Reservation as they form a tentative relationship with their incarcerated father through the exchange of video letters, filmmakers document the years that follow as each girl flowers into a beautiful young woman with a strong sense of identity and purpose.
st half of the 20th century, Jim Thorpe represents one of the greatest machines known to man. Beginning with Thorpe’s boyhood at the Sac and Fox Nation to his rise to athletic stardom at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the story follows Thorpe as he won two gold medals at the 1912 Summer Olympics to his fall from grace in the eyes of the amateur athletic establishment, and his rebound in professional baseball and football.
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