The Lost Spirits

Poet Layli Long Soldier crafts a searing portrait of her Oyate’s connection to the Black Hills, through first contact and broken treaties to the promise of the Land Back movement, in this lyrical testament to resilience of a nation.

Called a maverick, a miracle-worker, and a quack, Dr. Marty Goldstein is a pioneer of integrative veterinary medicine. By holistically treating animals after other vets have given up, Goldstein provides a last hope for pet owners with nothing left to lose.

First hand interviews and on the ground footage give a stirring account of The Standing Rock Sioux Nation's and water protectors' opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline

Two formidable Native American women, both chief judges in their tribe's courts, strive to reduce incarceration rates and heal their people by restoring rather than punishing offenders, modeling restorative justice in action.

A portrait of the Hopi tribe who live in northeastern Arizona.

Overview of the Navajo people and the relationship to their land in Northern Arizona.

Short about the daily life of the Apaches, including their ceremonies.

Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.

The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.

A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances, and politics.

A documentary that tells the story of five American Indian artists, the Urban Indian 5 (UI5), and their unique partnership.

Following four Lakota families over three years, Homeland explores what it takes for the Lakota community to build a better future in the face of tribal and government corruption, scarce housing, unemployment, and alcoholism. Intimate interviews with a spiritual leader, a grandmother, an artist, and a community activist from South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation reveal how each survives through family ties, cultural tradition, humor, and a palpable yearning for self-reliance and personal freedom.

Three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda compete in their country's national music and dance festival.

Still photographs and narration give an overview of the history of the American Indian.

Jan calls himself Buffalo. He loves cowboys, he’s blind, and may lose his hearing. The documentary follows his journey to America to visit the chief of the Navajo tribe, who wants to perform a ritual to help his hearing. The film is full of unpretentious humor thanks to Jan’s charisma. In the USA, he’s like the Don Quixote of the Wild West - a naive adventurer in a world that is much more ordinary than his imagination. This observational, but not standoffish, film is also an example of how the medium of film can relate to blind people by constantly showing the difference between what Jan perceives and what we actually see.

A doc about the Cree and Chippewa people of northern Manitoba. Made in the mid 20th century, it is dated in tone, but provides insight into the vital relationship that existed between First Nations and the caribou herds that sustained them.

An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.

In 1587, more than 100 English colonists settle on Roanoke Island and soon vanish, baffling historians for centuries; now, experts use the latest forensic archaeology to investigate the true story behind America's oldest and most controversial mystery.

On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a group of Indians. Although several men were charged with killing the agents, only one, Leonard Peltier, was found guilty. This film describes the events surrounding the shootout and suggests that Peltier was unjustly convicted.

In powerful images, alternating between documentary observation and staged sequences, and dense soundscapes, Luiz Bolognesi documents the Indigenous community of the Yanomami and depicts their threatened natural environment in the Amazon rainforest.