California’s American Indian & Indigenous Film Festival (CAIIFF)

The California’s American Indian & Indigenous Film Festival (CAIIFF) located on tribal lands offers audiences in Southern California the finest work in American Indian film and media on an annual basis. The CAIIFF highlights the best of current films from American Indian and Indigenous filmmakers, producers, directors, and actors working throughout Indian Country. The CAIIFF located on tribal lands in an area that is home to the largest number of Indian reservations in the region and is able to reach unprecedented numbers of tribal people and the surrounding community. 

RED NATION INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Natives in Charge of Their Narrative. #WhyWeWearRED What happens when we challenge ourselves to take a view from the Native perspective. Independent Film changes everything. We can discover ourselves through the power of film. You the audience will make a special connection to our storytellers at this years festival in celebration of American Indian Heritage Month. 

AMERICAN INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

The American Indian Film Festival is the world’s longest-running exposition showcasing independent films of U.S. American Indians and First Nations peoples of Canada. For the last 43years, AIFI has served and celebrated generations of Indian filmmakers, performing artists and audiences, with the best of the most current Indian Cinema while drawing into the circle of Hollywood celebrities, industry professionals, student filmmakers, seasoned festival-goers and newcomers traveling to San Francisco from near and far.

Latino and Native American Film Festival

The Latino & Native American Film Festival (LANAFF) is groundbreaking in its dedication to the recruitment and retention of Latino and Native American students toward furthering their education at the university level. The Festival is, further, innovative in its promotion of these two cultures through the exhibition of feature films, documentaries, shorts, and animations, as well as through other artistic manifestations by or about Latinos and Native Americans. 

Sarasota Native American Film Festival

The mission of the Sarasota Native American Film Festival is to present cinematic works related to the experience of indigenous people in the Americas. The festival is produced by the Sarasota Film Festival and the Boxser Diversity Initiative, in collaboration with the Native Reel Cinema Festival, the Stranahan House Museum, and the Ah-Tah-Thi- Ki Museum of Seminole Culture and History.

Quetzalcoatl Indigenous International Film Festival

The Quetzalcoalt Indigenous International Film Festival encourage Fiction Films, Documentary Films, Anthropology Films, Research Films, Human Rights with focus on Native, Aboriginal and Indigenous Exploration, sustainability, Pride and Conservation of Heritage works of Cinema.

Fort Smith International Film Festival

Located in an original wild west border town, the 2022 Fort Smith International Film Festival, celebrates “Borderlands,” where the stories of our lives exist. Our shared humanity is experienced at the borders between countries, nations, states, cities, neighborhoods, languages, races, genders, cultures, social economic classes, and ages.

SUNDANCE: INDIGENOUS FILM PROGRAM

The Sundance Institute’s commitment to supporting Indigenous artists is woven throughout our history. Indigenous filmmakers have long been involved in the Institute, going back to Larry Littlebird (Laguna/Santo Domingo Pueblo) and Chris Spotted Eagle (Houmas Nation), who participated in the first meetings founding the Sundance Institute. Following president and founder Robert Redford’s original vision, the Institute has remained committed to supporting the voices of Indigenous artists.

AMERICAN INDIAN FILM INSTITUTE

The American Indian Film Institute (AIFI) is a non-profit media arts center founded in 1979 to foster understanding of the culture, traditions and issues of contemporary Native Americans. American Indians have had an uneasy relationship with the media industry since the origins of film over 100 years ago. The goals and mission of AIFI are to encourage Native/non-Native filmmakers to bring to the broader media culture the Native voices, viewpoints and stories that have been historically excluded from mainstream media; to develop Indian and non-Indian audiences for this work; and to advocate tirelessly for authentic visual and work-force representations of Indians in the media. 

INTERCONTINENTAL AMERICAN INDIGENOUS RESEARCH ASSOCIATION (iAIRA)

The mission of the American Indigenous Research Association is to promote, foster, and apply Indigenous Research Methods — methods based in the paradigms, philosophies, knowledge systems, values and beliefs of Indigenous communities, engaged in research — to any and all research carried out with Indigenous peoples. The American Indigenous Research Association strives to promote community and individual development, self-determination, and decolonization of Indigenous peoples and goes beyond the methods of CBPR.

AIRA aims to educate the research community, the public, and Indigenous communities about respectful and ethically sound investigations from an Indigenous paradigm.

FIRST NATIONS DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE (FNDI)

The First Nations Development Institute's mission is to strengthen American Indian economies to support healthy Native communities. They invest in and create innovative institutions and models that strengthen asset control and support economic development for American Indian people and their communities.

They approach their work with Native communities with a clear understanding of accountability to them. Their interaction with Native communities is all about mutual respect, listening rather than telling, and with an approach that is responsive and inclusive of the communities’ needs and solutions. Their work is governed by a culturally appropriate/ sensitive research policy in which they believe that data created and gathered belongs to the communities who generate it.

AMERICAN INDIAN INSTITUTE (AII)

The mission of the American Indian Institute is to support and uplift the ancient wisdom and cultural heritage of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and to translate this ancient wisdom into a contemporary context for all peoples. The Institute recognizes the devastation that all Indigenous Peoples have faced historically, and the many obstacles that they continue to face today. Therefore, we commit to fostering greater understanding of the sacred Indigenous way of life and its potential to move us beyond a society that routinely desecrates Mother Earth and sacrifices life, by bringing us back into harmony with all creation.

We are power speech by John Trudell (July 18, 1980)

John Trudell is a Native American author, poet, actor, musician, and former political activist. He was the chairman of the American Indian Movement for most of the 1970s and the spokesperson for the takeover of Alcatraz.

In 1979, his mother-in-law, pregnant wife (Tina Manning), and three children were killed in a fire at their home in Nevada. It occurred within 12 hours of his burning a flag on the steps of the FBI building in Washington DC. He viewed it as an act of war meant to silence him and his outspoken wife.

"The largest gathering in recent years of indigenous peoples and their supporters took place in the Paha Sapa (Black Hills) of South Dakota during the baking-hot late summer of 1980. 

RECKONING AT STANDING ROCK

Article about Standing Rock by Paul VanDevelder (October 28, 2016)

Image credit: Terray Sylvester

Why documentaries have the power to change the world, CULTURE (20 December 2016)

Documentary Video Production

Making Documentaries - Step-By-Step: How To Make a Documentary

STORYCENTER: ONLINE DIGITAL STORYTELLING WORKSHOP

Seven Steps of Digital Storytelling by Joe Lambert

Working Narratives: WHAT IS A STORY CIRCLE AND HOW DO WE FACILITATE ONE?