The Water Gap: Return to the Homeland

A look into the 19th century American-Indian Wars, Manifest Destiny, and the conflicts between Apache tribes and the African-American Buffalo soldier regiments.

African American soldiers throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries faced discrimination and segregation, yet many still chose to fight for their country.

Sean and Adrian, a Two-Spirit couple, are determined to rewrite the rules of Native American culture through their participation in the “Sweetheart Dance.” This celebratory contest is held at powwows across the country, primarily for heterosexual couples … until now.

Shows representative samples of Northwest Indian art collected from six different museums, featuring the double-faced mechanical masks which were part of this culture.

The American Southwest holds a dark legacy as the place where nuclear weapons were invented and built. Navajo people have long held this place sacred, and continue to fight for a future that transcends historical trauma. This is their story.

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.

An experimental look at the origin of the death myth of the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, following two people as they navigate their own relationships to the spirit world and a place in between life and death.

Waters’ LIFT project, ᏗᏂᏠᎯ ᎤᏪᏯ (Meet Me at the Creek), is the fourth of a quartet of films, and focuses on interconnectedness and Cherokee values through the lifelong fight of Rebecca Jim, a Cherokee Nation citizen and waterkeeper warrior, as she leads the effort to restore Tar Creek in Miami, Oklahoma.

Documentary examines the different paths taken by brothers Edward & Asahel Curtis in their photographs of Northwest Indians and Yukon explorers, as well as their influence on Seattle & Washington state

A meeting of the Far West Council elders inspires a discussion of Northwest Native American history and traditions, and the struggle to remember and honor their ancestry

In this evocative meditation, a disturbing link is made between the resource extraction industries’ exploitation of the land and violence inflicted on Indigenous women and girls. Or, as one young woman testifies, “Just as the land is being used, these women are being used.”

A documentary account by award-winning filmmaker John Ferry of the events that led up to the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island as told by principal organizer, Adam Fortunate Eagle. The story unfolds through Fortunate Eagle's remembrances, archival newsreel footage and photographs.

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.

In Polynesia, as humpback whales come to breed in the warm waters of the Pacific, Natoo immerses herself in a timeless experience.

Examines the violence and civil disobedience leading up to the hallmark decision in U.S. v. Washington, with particular reference to the Nisqually Indians of Frank's Landing in Washington.

Dolores

Lakota people from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota describe the ongoing struggle of their people.

Examines the impact a century of struggling for survival has on a native people. It weaves the Crow tribe's turbulent past with modern-day accounts from Robert Yellow-tail, a 97-year-old Crow leader and a major reason for the tribe's survival. Poverty and isolation combine with outside pressures to undermine the tribe, but they resist defeat as "Contrary Warriors," defying the odds.

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.

An Ojibwe woman explores the history and spiritual importance of manoomin to the Mille Lacs Band by interviewing tribal elders, visiting a museum, harvesting wild rice by canoe, and preserving her people's legacy for her son.