Through Indian Eyes: Native American Cinema

Friday, April 22 – Wednesday, April 27, 2016

“Native Americans first appeared on film in 1895 at the dawn of the medium but were totally excluded from any meaningful role in the production of their own cinematic images for virtually the entire century to follow. They continue to be marginalized in the entertainment industry today. Over the last 25 years, however, a renaissance in independent Native American filmmaking has occurred. Since the 1970s, Native communities, after centuries-old legacies of genocide, displacement, forced assimilation, poverty, alcoholism, and demeaning media images, have worked incrementally to take command of their destinies and their representation.

Native American filmmakers have undertaken dramas, crime films, comedies, shorts, documentaries, and animation, reaching mainstream audiences and Native communities while working to recuperate tribal languages, spirituality, and community. We see the beginning development of a Native American film aesthetic: different ways of perceiving space and time, stories that are circular rather than linear, landscapes which are both real and allegorical. The Brattle is thrilled to be able to present this program of works produced in Canada and the United States, representing a cross-section of tribal communities.” – Adapted from notes for the UCLA Film & Television Archive

Presented in association with UCLA Film & Television Archive. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Series curators: Jan-Christopher Horak, Dawn Jackson (Saginaw Chippewa), Shannon Kelley, Paul Malcolm, and Valerie Red-Horse Mohl (Cherokee). Associate curator: Nina Rao.

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