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Retrospective Showcase Shorts I
Wednesday, November 18, 2020 | 9 PM EST
Available on demand until 9 PM EST, November 23, 2020

Combining a collection of short films from the showcase’s previous years, this shorts program explores the residential school experience, regaining one’s cultural identity, and loss of ancestral artifacts.

Shimásání | starts at 00:00:00
(USA, 2009, 15 min.)
Director: Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo)
In Navajo with English subtitles

In the late 1920s, on the serene Navajo reservation, Mary Jane must decide whether to retain her traditional lifestyle at home with her másání (grandmother) or seek a new life “just over the mountain.”

Female Rain/Nilts's Biáád | starts at 00:15:24
(USA, 2006, 2 min.)
Director: Velma K. Craig (Navajo)
English and Navajo with English subtitles

Based on a poem by Navajo writer Laura Tohe, Female Rain/Nilts's Biáád expresses the filmmaker’s love of the Navajo language.

Smoke That Travels | starts at 00:17:22
(USA, 2016, 13 min.)
Director: Kayla Briët (Prairie Band Potawatomi)
English and Potawatomi with English subtitles

This personal documentary explores preservation and loss of culture.

Savage | starts at 00:30:29
(Canada, 2009, 6 min.)
Director: Lisa Jackson (Anishinaabe)

This wildly inventive film gives a new perspective on the profound trauma of the boarding school for Native people.

?E?anx/The Cave | starts at 00:36:42
(Canada, 2009, 11 min.)
Director: Helen Haig-Brown (Tsilhqot’in)
In Tsilhqot’in with English subtitles

FOR MATURE AUDIENCES: BRIEF NUDITY

A hunter discovers a portal to the spirit world in this powerful rendition of a true story from the filmmaker’s community in British Columbia.

Cree Code Talkers | starts at 00:47:40
(Canada, 2016, 13 min.)
Director: Alexandra Lazarowich (Cree)
English and Cree with English subtitles

This true story of Charles “Checker” Tomkins shares the history of his involvement with the U.S. Air Force during the development of the Code Talkers communication system, which transmitted crucial military communications using the Cree language.

How to Steal a Canoe | starts at 01:01:05
(Canada, 2016, 4 min.)
Director: Amanda Strong (Métis)

How to Steal a Canoe is a song that tells the story of a young Nishnaabeg woman and an old Nishnaabeg man who rescue a canoe from a museum and return it to the lake it was meant to travel. On a deeper level, it speaks of stealing back the precious parts of us that were always ours in the first place.

The Grandfather Drum | starts at 01:05:16
(Canada, 2015, 12 min.)
Director: Michelle Derosier (Anishinaabe)
English and Anishinabemowin with English subtitles

A grandfather creates a healing drum that he saw in a vision—a drum that brings his grandson back from the brink and provides healing to the community years later. Intrusion has caused the drum to be forgotten, but it waits to be useful again.