Monday, October 14, 2024 – 5:00 PM - 6:45 PM – North Park Theatre

BIFF Shorts: Decolonial Spotlights
Anti-ethnographic works that provide windows into the lives, minds and cultures of some of the world's most exciting, contemporary Indigenous filmmakers. Free screening! 62 minutes.

"Tentsítewahkwe"

Katsitsionni Fox (Dir) 18 minutes, Akwesasne / USA / Canada, New York State Premiere

Director Katsitsionni Fox and Star/Documentary Participant Jessica Shenandoah in attendance.

In Kanien'kéha and English w/ English subtitles.

Haudenosaunee people follow the season cycles of the earth – their mothers and grandmothers knew how to take what was harvested from the land to create what was needed for their families. Jessica Shenandoah is Wolf Clan from the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and comes from a large family of knowledge keepers. As a young girl, she picked medicines, berries and wild food plants with her mother and grandmother. She is now a mother of four, seeking to bring back the land based practices that have been lost. Jessica reaches both inside and outside Haudenosaunee territories to find those who have reconnected this knowledge, so she can bring it back to her community and the future generations. She embodies Tentsítewahkwe, as she picks up knowledge of the old ways, these slow methods of creating and connecting in reciprocity with the earth reemerge.

"Tahnaanooku'"

Justin Deegan (Dir), 7 minutes, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation / USA, New York State Premiere

In Arikara and English w/ English subtitles.

A grandmother. A source of existence. A portal to other worlds. For thousands of years, the Indigenous Peoples of what is now known as North and South Dakota co-existed reciprocally with the Missouri River, its waters offering life while also inspiring legends and languages.

Seen through the eyes of the filmmaker's mother, Darline, Tahnaanooku’ intertwines past, present, and future, land and language, dreams and reality. It takes an experimental approach to the severing of this relationship between these communities — the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara — and the river, the result of over 80 years of US government efforts to control the Missouri, including via the Garrison Dam.

"Armea"

Letila Mitchell (Dir), 21 minutes, Rotuma / Fiji, New York State Premiere

In Fäeag Rotuạm and English w/ English subtitles.

Steeped in symbolism and no larger than a child’s hand, the diminutive bird known as the Armea is found in only one place on Earth: the Pacific island of Rotuma.

After scores of performances around the world and years away from Rotuma, Armea opens as the dedicated dancers and musicians of Rako Pasefika make their long awaited return home to the island.

“If you listen to nature, it will lead the way…” (Elder Gagaj Taimanav)

"Enchukunoto / The Return"

Laissa Malih (Dir), 16 minutes, Kenya, New York State Premiere

In Maa and English w/ English subtitles.

The first female Maasai filmmaker (Malih) initially set out to document the land-based practices of her forefathers and ways in which climate change is reshaping Maasai communities. In returning to the IL-Laikipiak Maasai village that her parents left when she was a child, Malih experiences an epiphany: her own life is a reflection of the myriad challenges between Maasai youth and elders, women and men, ancestral ways of passing down essential knowledge and modern methods of education.

Presented in partnership with The Reciprocity Project.