American Interior
Two men. Two quests. Two centuries apart. Four ways to experience the search for a lost tribe. Film. Book. Album. App.
Considered a staple of Florida tourism, alligator wrestling has been performed by members of the Seminole Tribe for over a century. As the practice has changed over the years, Halpate profiles the hazards and history of the spectacle through the words of the tribe's alligator wrestlers themselves and what it has meant to their people's survival.
Two men. Two quests. Two centuries apart. Four ways to experience the search for a lost tribe. Film. Book. Album. App.
Three Lenape tribes send their youth to the Delaware Water Gap region to reconnect with their ancestral homelands.
A man that is a stranger, is an incredibly easy man to hate. However, walking in a stranger’s shoes, even for a short while, can transform a perceived adversary into an ally. Power is found in coming to know our neighbor’s hearts. For in the darkness of ignorance, enemies are made and wars are waged, but in the light of understanding, family extends beyond blood lines and legacies of hatred crumble.
Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to his friends that he 'bug-smashed a fag'. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition - the 'nadleeh', or 'two-spirit', who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits.
INAATE/SE/ re-imagines an ancient Ojibway story, the Seven Fires Prophecy, which both predates and predicts first contact with Europeans. A kaleidoscopic experience blending documentary, narrative, and experimental forms, INAATE/SE/ transcends linear colonized history to explore how the prophecy resonates through the generations in their indigenous community within Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. With acute geographic specificity, and grand historical scope, the film fixes its lens between the sacred and the profane to pry open the construction of contemporary indigenous identity.
This documentary reveals the untold history of America's Indian Adoption Era, a time when Native children were stolen from their families and forced to assimilate, the process itself designed to wipe out generations of culture.
Nóouhàh-Toka’na, known as swift fox in English, once roamed the North American Great Plains from Canada to Texas. Like bison, pronghorn and other plains animals, Nóouhàh-Toka’na held cultural significance for the Native Americans who lived alongside them. But predator control programs in the mid-1900s reduced the foxes to just 10 percent of their native range. At the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana, members of the Aaniiih and Nakoda tribes are working with the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute and other conservation partners to restore biodiversity and return Nóouhàh-Toka’na to the land.
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A documentary film about Comanche activist LaDonna Harris, who led an extensive life of Native political and social activism, and is now passing on her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging Indigenous leaders.
What does blood have to do with identity? Kendra Mylnechuk, an adult Native adoptee, born in 1980 at the cusp of the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, is on a journey to reconnect with her birth family and discover her Lummi heritage.
The Great Lakes and connecting waterways have remained the center of traditional and contemporary economies for centuries. Meet the Ojibwe and a tribe that was relocated to this region—the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin who care for these lands. Natural resources are the Tribes’ main economy, including the famous Red Lake walleye and wild rice lakes.
All across Alaska, Native cultures have depended on the abundant natural resources found there to support their families, cultures and way of life. Now these resources are growing scarce, and the people who have relied on them for centuries have to find new ways to adapt.
Oklahoma is home to thirty-nine federally recognized tribes. Nowhere in North America will you find such diversity among Native Peoples, and nowhere will you find a more tragic history. Host Moses Brings Plenty (Oglala Lakota) guides this episode of Growing Native on a journey through Oklahoma’s past and present.
A short documentary about the Ojibwe Native Americans of Northern Minnesota and the wild rice (Manoomin) they consider a sacred gift from the Creator. The film tells the Creation and Migration stories that are central to the tribe's oral history and belief system while showing the traditional process of hand-harvesting and parching the wild rice. Biotech companies are currently researching ways to genetically modify the rice and the community is fighting to keep it wild.
Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo's Grandfather disappeared mysteriously in 1962. The community searching for him sang songs of encouragement that were passed down for generations. Harjo explores the origins of these songs as well as the violent history of his people.
A day in the life of 91.1, Nuxalk Radio, a radio station built to help keep the Nuxalk language alive while broadcasting the laws of the lands and waters.
A dizzying view of Manhattan in the 1960s, the tallest town in the world, and the men who work cloud-high to keep it growing. They are the Mohawk Indians from Kahnawake, near Montréal, famed for their skill in erecting the steel frames of skyscrapers. The film shows their nimble work, high above the pavement, but there are also glimpses of the quieter community life of the old Kahnawake Reserve.
Concerned about the declining health of people all around them, Native American women are sparking physical and spiritual rejuvenation through reclaiming traditional foodways.
This short film follows Tonisha, Toneil and their family as they reclaim their Navajo history and reconnect with ancestors within the canyon walls.
The last surviving Native Americans on Long Island are the focus of The Lost Spirits. The film chronicles their struggles as an indigenous people to maintain their identity amidst relentless modernization and a heartless bureaucracy.