Six Indigenous Films Funded.

Vision Maker Media website.

Vision Maker Media website.

Vision Maker Media (VMM) has announced financial support for six new projects for production by and about Native Americans.

With funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Vision Maker Media’s Public Media Content Fund awards support to projects with a Native American theme and significant Native involvement. […] “The goal of the Public Media Content Fund is to increase the diversity of voices available to PBS viewers,” said Shirley K. Sneve (Rosebud Sioux), executive director of Vision Maker Media.

The final slate of documentaries funded this year represents Native voices and stories from across the United States, including Alaska, California, Illinois, Montana, Oklahoma and Washington, some documentaries will cover stories coast-to-coast. In this funding cycle, 66 percent of the filmmakers are women, 33 percent are male; 66 percent are enrolled in a federally recognized tribe.

Funding was awarded as 75 percent production, 19 percent post-production and completion and 6 percent new media.

The projects are:

ATTLA

Catharine Axley

Production | 100,000

ATTLA tells the gripping story of George Attla, an Alaska Native dogsled racer who, with just one good leg – childhood tuberculosis left him with a lame leg – and a determined mindset, became a legendary sports hero among both western and Native communities across the country.

Kendra (Working Title)

Brooke Swaney (Blackfeet/Salish)

Production | 100,000

What does blood have to do with identity? Kendra Mylnechuk, an adult Native adoptee born in 1980 at the cusp of the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act, is on a journey to reconnect with her birth family and discover her Lummi heritage.

The Blackfeet Flood

Ben Shors, Lailani Upham (Blackfeet/Sisseton Wahpeton/Gros Ventre)

Production | $73,484

More than a half-century after the worst disaster in Montana history, two Blackfeet families struggle to come to terms with the 1964 flood. While one family held on to their rural lifestyle, the flood scattered the other family across the U.S.

Words From A Bear: The Enigmatic Life of Author N. Scott Momaday

Jeffrey Palmer (Kiowa)

Production | 115,000

Words From A Bear examines the enigmatic life and mind of Pulitzer-Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday. The biography delves into the psyche, ancestry and writings of one of Native America’s most celebrated authors of poetry and prose.

Keep Talking

Karen Weinberg, Kartemquin Films

Post-Production | 100,000

Kodiak Alutiiq Elders of Alaska’s Gulf Coast are victims of systematic assimilation and abuse, first by Russian occupation, then by the United States government. Now with less than 50 fluent Native speakers of Kodiak Alutiiq remaining, three young Alutiiq women battle the resulting historical trauma and discover that saving their language is truly a matter of life and death.

In the Beginning was Water and Sky

Mackenzie Gruer (Tyendinaga Mohawk), Ryan Ward (Métis)

New Media | $30,000

In the Beginning was Water and Sky is a short-form New Media project that tells two parallel stories about a Chippewa boy who runs away from Indian Boarding School in the 1950s and a Chippewa girl who runs away from her village in the 1700s.

ICTMN has the full story.

Art Exhibition Reeks of Cultural Appropriation.

Courtesy Douglas Flanders and Associates An art exhibition in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is causing a stir over the artist's use of Native American imagery.

Courtesy Douglas Flanders and Associates
An art exhibition in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is causing a stir over the artist’s use of Native American imagery.

For over 200 years, non-Natives have appropriated Native American culture for their own intents and purposes. The sphere is wide when it comes to the misuse of Native American culture; appropriation can be seen in sports mascots, fashion and design, product logos; the list goes on and on. The problem with this current mainstream model is that it denies Indigenous people the right to represent their own lifeways and worldview.

The show “Scott Seekins, the New Eden” at the Douglas Flanders and Associates Art Gallery, is being touted as Seekins response to the “Great Sioux Uprising of 1862.” Seekins’s “body of work as an alternative to Minnesota’s tepid 2012 150-year remembrance,” as the gallery touts on its website, is problematic in its interpretation, as it reeks of Native appropriation, and lacks a Native voice.

Scott Seekins, a mainstay of the Minneapolis art scene, is best known for his eccentric dress and demeanor as opposed to the quality of his work. This particular collection of Seekins’s work imitates historic Plains style of drawing (erroneously referred to as ledger art), where he replicates scenes, moves the images around, and inserts himself in a sort of Forrest Gump manner. To be clear, Plains style drawings were a warrior’s record of bravery against the enemy, hunting scenes, courtship, and ceremonial life, these accounts were drawn in accountant ledgers and sketchbooks.

Seekins’s work is the quintessential example of cultural appropriation.

In Seekins’s painting, a clear replica of John Casper Wild’s “Watercolor Painting of Fort Snelling,” (1884), Seekins portrays himself guiding a non-Native woman holding a baby, in the background there are tipis and the fort on the bluff. In another drawing created in the historic Plains graphic style, a Native man has defeated an enemy Calvary, while Seekins, wearing his iconic suit, stands with his arms raised. By placing himself in these historical scenes he positions himself as a mediator and witness. By doing this he disregards the Native American narrative. Considering that this is one of the worst tragedies between the United States Government and American Indians, the U.S. Dakota War of 1862 and its aftermath has had a long lasting impact on the descendants of the Dakota that died. Many Dakota died at Fort Snelling and on the gallows in Mankato, their descendants carry the spirit of their Ancestors with them, they live among us, they are part of us, they are an important part of the Minnesota narrative.

You can read the rest of Joe D. Horse Capture’s article at ICTMN.

19.

Courtesy whitehouse.gov “Hayes started out his term believing in the reservation system, then he realized that Natives weren’t going to stay on reservations and white settlers wouldn’t stay off their land.”

Courtesy whitehouse.gov
“Hayes started out his term believing in the reservation system, then he realized that Natives weren’t going to stay on reservations and white settlers wouldn’t stay off their land.”

Rutherford B. Hayes’ four years in the White House, from 1877 to 1881, marked a distinct change in federal Indian policy, as the government moved away from forced removal of Indians to reservations and toward a system that allotted land to individuals.

Billed as a solution to the government’s insatiable hunger for land, Hayes’ policies reduced the size of reservations and called for acculturation of Indians into Western society. His strategies, which came amid ongoing conflicts with Indian nations, also included approval of the first Indian boarding school.

[…]

In his second message to Congress, in December 1878, Hayes pledged to “purify” the Indian Bureau and establish “just and humane” Indian policies that would preserve peace. His “ultimate solution to what is called the Indian problem,” however, was to “curb the unruly spirit of the savage Indian” and train them to be agriculturists or herdsmen.

“It may be impossible to raise them fully up to the level of the white population of the United States; but we should not forget that they are the aborigines of the country, and called the soil their own on which our people have grown rich, powerful, and happy,” Hayes told Congress. “We owe it to them as a moral duty to help them in attaining at least that degree of civilization which they may be able to reach.”

[…]

During his four years in office, Hayes issued several executive orders creating new reservations and reducing the size of existing reservations. The most drastic was the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, which was cut from 7.8 million acres to 1.2 million.

Hayes’ actions came as Indian nations, fed up with forced removal and encroachment of white settlers, fought back. These battles included the Nez Perce War in 1877, the Bannock War in 1878 and the Ute and White River wars, both in 1879.

[…]

Hayes also called for the education of Indian youth. In 1878, he supported establishment of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in eastern Pennsylvania. The flagship Indian boarding school, Carlisle was the brainchild of Capt. Richard Henry Pratt, who notoriously plotted to “kill the Indian and save the man.” Carlisle opened in October 1879.

The full article is here.

The Carlisle Indian School is still in the news, and an ongoing issue.

Boarding School Healing Coalition Captain Richard Pratt designed boarding schools to transform the Indian into the white man’s image. His first was Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Boarding School Healing Coalition
Captain Richard Pratt designed boarding schools to transform the Indian into the white man’s image. His first was Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

In a clearing closer and less honored, on the grounds of what is now the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, lie nearly 200 children; gone, but never forgotten; casualties of a federal policy to “kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” A leading architect of that policy, former cavalry officer Richard Henry Pratt, founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School on these grounds in 1879 on a model of military training.

Full Story: US Army Pledges to Bear Full Cost of Returning Carlisle Remains.

Cool Stuff Friday

Louie’s Jurassic Park:

In his off-duty time, NASA Astronaut Don Pettit experiments with the physics of
water in the weightless environment aboard the International Space Station:

 

McAvoy goes full Stewart:

25 Contemporary Artists Reimagine the African Mask.

Nandipha Mntambo (South African, born 1982). Europa, 2008. Exhibition print, 31 ½ x 31 ½ in. (80 x 80 cm). Photographic composite: Tony Meintjes. Courtesy of the artist and STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg. © Nandipha Mntambo. Photo: Courtesy of STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg

Nandipha Mntambo (South African, born 1982). Europa, 2008. Exhibition print, 31 ½ x 31 ½ in. (80 x 80 cm). Photographic composite: Tony Meintjes. Courtesy of the artist and STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg. © Nandipha Mntambo. Photo: Courtesy of STEVENSON, Cape Town and Johannesburg.

Click the link for more photos, and the full story.

Trump Presidency: Forget Canada, Go to Russia!

Russia

Several celebrities and liberal politicians have threatened to move to Canada if Donald Trump becomes president, but Vladimir Putin would like American political refugees to consider moving to Russia instead.

Putin is offering 2.5 acres and citizenship to any Americans fleeing a Donald Trump presidency who would be willing to live in Russia’s remote Far East for at least his first term.

Like the United States 19th century western land rush, the Russian Homestead Act was designed to lure hardy settlers and political asylum seekers to help settle the largely undeveloped region.

Inquisitr has the full story.

National Parks Going Corporate

'North Rim Grand Canyon Cape Royal' [Shutterstock]

‘North Rim Grand Canyon Cape Royal’ [Shutterstock]

The National Park Service is opening the door to corporate sponsorship by expanding the definition of philanthropy.

Corporate sponsors won’t be able to place advertising or marketing slogans at the 411 national parks, but they will be allowed to prominently display their logos and gain naming rights for some features in return for their gifts, reported the Washington Post.

Proposed new rules — which are set to go into effect later this year — will allow corporations to design and build park buildings and operate them over the long term, and some donors will be granted naming rights to park programs, positions and endowments.

[…]

The new rules for park managers include a shift away from protecting environmental resources toward fundraising.

“Does that become a major part of the job?” said John Garder, budget and appropriations director for the National Parks Conservation Association. “Can the park service say, ‘This person’s doing an awesome job protecting bison, but they’re not raising enough money?’”

Full Story Here. Every day, I get the feeling that a huge sign has been put out, ‘AmericaLand Park! A fine example of how to fuck up a country.’

Remember Those Buried at Hiawatha Asylum

Courtesy South Dakota Historical Society Though many attempts have been made to lock up Indians, none are as notorious and depraved as what happened at the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians.

Courtesy South Dakota Historical Society
Though many attempts have been made to lock up Indians, none are as notorious and depraved as what happened at the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians.

Construction of the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians by the Bureau of Indian Affairs began in Canton, South Dakota in 1901.

“When Western doctors first entered Indian country, they brought with them a Christian-informed, European Enlightenment belief in madness as illness in the body—that is, the belief that loss of one’s reasoning ability came about through defects in the body, specifically, the brain,” says David Edward Walker in a past ICTMN piece. “Very soon, the now-abandoned psychiatric label, lunatic, was being applied to resistant, overwhelmed or merely displaced Native people who were the victims of colonization and oppression.”

But Native Americans didn’t have to be insane to be committed, as Walker points out. “To be destitute was the only universal criteria for admission. Whether he or she was drunk, angry or strange, or merely very poor, there was little distinction made when confining this newly-minted Crazy Indian.”

[…]

On Sunday, June 5 at noon an Honoring and Remembering Ceremony will be held for the 53 tribes across 17 states with ancestors buried at the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians Cemetery.

The ceremony will include traditional prayers with Joe Shields, Yankton Sioux Elder, and David Grignon, director of the Menominee Tribe’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office in Wisconsin, as well as traditional drums and songs with Haystack Butte, Yankton Sioux Tribe.

Lavanah Smith-Judah, Yankton Sioux Tribe, will do a Who Will Sing My Name Prayer Ribbon Ceremony, and Yankton Sioux Veteran’s Honor Guard will offer a tribute. There will also be a 21 Bow and Arrow Salute.

Full Story Here. You can read more about the Hiawatha Asylum here.

LGBT Superheroes?

civil_war

Will Marvel Films Feature LGBT Superheroes? Civil War Directors Think So.

Captain America: Civil War directors Joe and Anthony Russo believe the Marvel universe is pushing “what people’s expectation of a superhero movie are.”

The duo recently talked about the possibility of a LGBT character in the upcoming Marvel films. “I think the chances are strong,” said Joe Russo. “It’s incumbent on us as storytellers who are making mass-appeal movies to make mass-appeal movies …. It’s sad in the way that Hollywood lags behind other industries so significantly.”

Joe’s got no idea. GLAAD’s Studio Responsibility Index recently found, among other data, that there was no significant increase in LGBT portrayal in major-studio films from 2014 to 2015—only 17.5 percent.

[…]

“I think this is a philosophy of Marvel—in success it becomes easier to take risks,” Anthony Russo said. “So I think that’s very hopeful for all of us moving forward that bolder and bolder choices can be made.”

So who will it be? Maybe we can sneak in a gay Iceman while Fox isn’t looking …

Out has the full story.

Indigenous News Roundup

Running for Their Lives: 500-Mile Youth Spiritual Run Against Dakota Access Pipeline.

The public outcry against the Dakota Access Pipeline has been joined by a group of youth, both Native and non-Native, who are running a 500-mile spiritual relay this week from Cannonball, North Dakota to the district office of the United States Army Corps of Engineers in Omaha, Nebraska.

“We ask that everyone stand with us against this threat to our health, our culture, and our sovereignty,” said the group in a statement. “We ask that everyone who lives on or near the Missouri River and its tributaries, everyone who farms or ranches in the local area, and everyone who cares about clean air and clean drinking water stand with us against the Dakota Access Pipeline!” Full story at the link.

Europe Reintroduces Its Own Brand of Bison, Also Driven to Near Extinction.

Valène Aure via Wikipedia European bison, known as wisent, are being reintroduced into the wild across the Pond from Turtle Island. Here, wisent frolic in the Réserve biologique des Monts d'Azur, Haut-Thorenc, France.

Valène Aure via Wikipedia
European bison, known as wisent, are being reintroduced into the wild across the Pond from Turtle Island. Here, wisent frolic in the Réserve biologique des Monts d’Azur, Haut-Thorenc, France.

Amid all the bison buzz on Turtle Island, what with the National Bison Legacy Act having passed both houses of Congress and currently sitting on President Barack Obama’s desk, a lesser-known but parallel phenomenon is happening across the Pond.

Full Story here.

Marty Two Bulls

Marty Two Bulls

Reconciliation Is the New Assimilation: New NAIPC Co-Chair.

Courtesy Tamara Starblanket “Indigenous Peoples have the right to self-determination in international law. Minorities do not have the rights of self-determination.”

Courtesy Tamara Starblanket
“Indigenous Peoples have the right to self-determination in international law. Minorities do not have the rights of self-determination.”

[Read more…]

The Pearl of Africa

the_pearl_of_africa.cover_

Hailing from Uganda, one of the most homophobic places on Earth, Cleo shares her story of love and triumph in the new documentary, The Pearl of Africa.

Cleopatra Kambugu refuses to be a victim. She refuses to be silenced, or made afraid. She simply wants to be free to live her life and love her man. It’s a universal feeling, this wanting, needing to be free, but in a place like Uganda, and for a woman like Cleo, freedom is hard fought.

As one of the few openly trans women in Uganda, and in all of Africa, Cleo faces any number of challenges to freedom, but she’s luckier than most. She was able to travel to Thailand for her gender confirmation surgery, though her native Uganda does not recognize her as female. That comes with its own set of problems, particularly when traveling, or trying to secure healthcare.

Hoping to shed light on a nearly invisible population within a country shrouded in homophobic myths and realities, Cleo began sharing her story in the popular webseriesThe Pearl of Africa. Now a documentary, Cleo’s story has the ability to reach an even wider audience.

Out has the story.

Youtube link.