The roster of films selected for screening at this year’s 30th anniversary of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s Native American Film and Video Festival reflects the richness and variety of Native American cinematic expressions, as filmmakers share their unique dreams and concerns, as well as those of their varied communities, through the art of the moving image. The films on the schedule were selected from more than 350 submissions from ten countries.

The program includes nine feature length documentaries and 17 documentary shorts.

The festival runs from March 26 to March 29, 2009, at the George Gustav Heye Center at One Bowling Green in New York City. All screenings are free of charge and open to the general public. Visit the museum‘s Website or call 212-514-3700 for information, or 212-514-3888 for prerecorded program information. For reservations, e-mail fvc@si.edu or call (212) 514-3737.

Feature Length Documentaries

• Club Native, 2008, 78 min. Canada. Directed by Tracey Deer (Mohawk), this documentary focuses on the lives and loves of four Kahnawake Mohawk women to investigate how the rule of blood quantum still defines aboriginal identity and determines an individual’s aboriginal rights to be a member of the community or not. Presented in association with Women Make Movies.
• El Juicio de Pascual Pichún/Besieged Land, 2007, 65 min. Canada/Chile, in Spanish and Mapudungun, with English subtitles. Directed by María Teresa Larraín, the film follows the heated dispute over land rights between a powerful landowner and a respected Mapuche chief. The case draws national, then world-wide attention when the chief is accused and tried for burning the landowner’s home. The film presents a clash between two opposing visions of the world, enflamed by a multinational company’s desire to log the land. US Premiere.

• Kanien’Keha:Ka/Living the Language, 2008, 62 min. Canada, in Mohawk and English, with English subtitles. Directed by Paul M. Rickard (Cree) and Tracey Deer (Mohawk), the film addresses the need to save an ancient language and what the effort requires for success. The Mohawk community of Akwesasne’s Freedom School develops an immersion program to teach the language to new speakers of all ages and, in doing so, preserve the culture. US Premiere.
• Little Caughnawaga: To Brooklyn and Back, 2008, 57 min. Canada/USA. Filmmaker Reaghan Tarbell (Mohawk) explores her cultural roots and traces her family’s development from the Kahnawake Reserve outside Montreal to the 10-square block area in Brooklyn known as Little Caughnawaga. There, while the Mohawk ironworkers were building Manhattan’s iconic skyscrapers, the women recreated and sustained their vibrant community far from home.
• Making the River, 2008, 83 min. USA. In SarahDel Seronde’s (Navajo) film, Jimi Simmons, who grew up within the institutional child welfare and prison system, shares his life story, telling how he found his family and discovered his Indian cultural identity while incarcerated and how he carried the values he found into his role as a loving husband and father. New York Premiere.
• Mokoi Tekoá Petei Jeguatá/Two Villages, One Path, 2008, 63 min. Brazil, in Guarani and Portuguese, with English subtitles. Three Guarani filmmakers explore the lives and challenges of two communities linked by their common past--and their first contacts with Europeans--and their economic dependence for survival on sale of artisanal crafts. US Premiere.
• Suma Qamaña, Sumak Kausay, Teko Kavi /For a Better Life, 2008, 55 min. Bolivia., in Spanish and indigenous languages, with English subtitles. This film, produced by the Cinematography Education and Production Center-Bolivian Indigenous Peoples’ Audiovisual Council and collectively directed, documents a forceful new movement for progressive change that has emerged among indigenous peoples in Bolivia, leading to the drafting of a controversial new national constitution that recognizes indigenous autonomy and protects linguistic and cultural diversity. US premiere.
• Weaving Worlds, 2007, 57 min. USA, in Navaho and English, with English subtitles. Directed by Bennie Klain (Navajo), the film delves into the complex relationships between Navajo rug weavers and reservation traders, revealing the delicate balance involved in maintaining cultural traditions, individual artistic identity and the commercial requirements for economic survival. New York Premiere.
• We Shall Remain: Trail of Tears, 2008, 74 min., USA. Chris Eyre’s (Cheyenne/Arapaho) documentary recreates the infamous episode in Cherokee history known Trail of Tears, in which the Cherokee nation was forced to leave their eastern homelands--although their tribe’s sovereignty had been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court--and relocate by foot to their present-day tribal home in Oklahoma. Presented in association with the American Indian Community House and Native American Public Telecommunications. World Premiere.