Native Film Festival explores contemporary
pressures on indigenous people
By GEORGE BRYSON
Anchorage Daily News
Published: January 12, 2006
If you were Native American, you were dispossessed. If you were
African-American, you were enslaved. And if you just happened to be a
mixed-race descendant of the two minorities, it was possible to
suffer the worst of both worlds.
So says "Black Indians," a one-hour documentary that launches the
second annual Native Film Festival, a free, two-day movie marathon
that begins Friday evening at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.
"They're called Black Indians, and theirs is one of our great unknown
American stories," says actor James Earl Jones, the film's narrator,
himself a descendant of African-Americans and Indians (Cherokee).
As were many other distinguished Americans, from emancipation leader
and former slave Frederick Douglass to poet Langston Hughes to
Olympic athlete Jesse Owens to popular singer Tina Turner.
But the lives of most Americans of mixed Native and black ancestry
were more obscure -- and often troubled by the racist history of
early white America.
"They were the ultimate survivors," says the film's producer, Steven
Heape.
Even in modern times, black Natives have sometimes found themselves
living as a minority among minorities, suffering a lack of acceptance
in white, black and Indian communities alike.
Though according to the film, that tendency appears to be changing in
recent years, given the increased incidence of multiracial marriages
throughout American society.
"I'm a person who wants to be viewed as a person who happens to be a
walking melting pot," says Victor Hazzard, part African-American and
Naragansett Indian, in an interview in the film. "I have three
distinct bloodlines -- and possibly more."
Nearly everyone interviewed in "Black Indians" (named Best Native
American Film of the Year in 2001) expressed pride in both black and
Indian cultures.
"My son was asked by a reporter the other day why he was so good in
basketball," said Phil Givens, African-American and Cherokee. "And he
told the reporter, 'If you were black and Indian, you'd be good too.'
"I mean, some of the world's greatest athletes were. Jim Thorpe was a
Native American. Jesse Owens was black -- and Indian. So we're unique
and special, and my kids understand that."
Coming to terms with contemporary pressures on Native cultures is a
theme that runs through several of the festival's offerings, which
include a variety of shorts, documentaries and features -- 20 films
in all -- to be screened back-to-back in the heritage center's main
auditorium.
FRIDAY FILMS
Among films to be screened from 6:30 to 11 p.m. Friday are:
• "Meegwetch," 7:15 p.m. (5 minutes), a music video from Canada.
• "Black Indians," 7:20 p.m. (60 minutes), followed by a brief
discussion of the film with Tobias Vanderhoop, a representative of
the Wampanoag tribe of the Atlantic seaboard.
• "Honey Moccasins," 8:40 p.m. (47 minutes), a Canadian "on the rez"
drama in which an unconventional cafe owner sleuths a crime.
• "Kinnaq Nigaqtuqtuaq (The Snaring Madman)," 9:30 p.m. (13 minutes),
a magical-realist story based in Manhattan in which a crazed Native
cannibal stalks a woman who in turn stalks an old lover. It was
produced by Inupiaq filmmaker Andrew MacLean of Barrow, who'll
discuss the film afterward.
• "A Thousand Roads," 10 p.m. (40 minutes), a documentary that shows
regularly at the recently opened National Museum of the American
Indian at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., to be
followed by a discussion of the film by director Joy Harjo.
"A Thousand Roads" is a generally uplifting look at the troubled
lives of four contemporary Native Americans -- a Mohawk woman in
Manhattan, an Inupiaq girl in Barrow, a Navajo gang member in Arizona
and an Indian shaman in Peru -- who struggle with modern times. It
will be followed by dessert and refreshments.
SATURDAY FILMS
Fifteen films will be screened from 10 a.m. to 11:15 p.m. Saturday,
including:
• "Two Cars One Night," 12:35 p.m. (11 minutes), a playful story of
first love between two children waiting for their parents in separate
parked cars outside a New Zealand pub. The film by Taika Waititi was
nominated for an Academy Award in 2004.
• "Johnny Tootall," 2:15 p.m. (92 minutes), a drama that follows the
life of a soldier returning from a haunting tour of duty in Bosnia to
a world of change back home, by acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Shirley
Cheechoo.
• "The Land Is Ours," 4:10 p.m. (60 minutes), a documentary on the
civil rights and land-claim struggles of the Tlingit and Haida people
of Southeast Alaska from the 1920s to 1940s. The film aired
nationwide on PBS and won the Best Feature Documentary award at the
American Indian Film Festival. It will be followed by a discussion
with filmmaker Larry Goldin of Anchorage.
• "Trudell," 7:30 p.m. (85 minutes), a documentary on the turbulent
life of Native American activist John Trudell.
• "Christmas in the Clouds," 9:40 p.m. (94 minutes), a lighthearted
drama (with a mostly Native-American cast) that follows the overly
conscientious manager of his tribe's new luxury resort, which gets
visited by an anonymous critic.
Daily News reporter George Bryson can be reached at George Bryson
SECOND ANNUAL NATIVE FILM FESTIVAL runs Friday and Saturday at the
Alaska Native Heritage Center off North Muldoon Road. The festival is
sponsored by BP, the U.S. Education Through Cultural and Historical
Organizations Act and the government of Canada. For more information,
call Kay Ashton at 330-8055 or go to Alaskan Native
Link to Report
Contents
January 2006 Reports
Last updated on January 14, 2006