Celebrating Native American and Indigenous Heritage Month

ATHER follows the stories of natives on the frontlines of a growing movement to reconnect with spiritual and cultural identities that were devastated by genocide.

An indigenous chef embarks on a ambitious project to reclaim ancient food ways on the Apache reservation; in South Dakota a gifted Lakota high school student, raised on a buffalo ranch, is proving her tribes native wisdom through her passion for science; and a group of young men of the Yurok tribe in Northern California are struggling to keep their culture alive and rehabilitate the habitat of their sacred salmon.

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the efflorescence of American Indian militancy, beginning with the occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969, to the Trail of Broken Treaties in November 1972 and the Wounded Knee occupation in 1973. Professor Cobb demonstrates how Native American activism intersected with the mainstream movements of the time.

America's first Native doctor, Susan La Flesche Picotte (1865-1915) studied medicine at a time when few women dared. She graduated first in her class and returned home to serve as doctor to her Omaha tribe. During this heartbreaking and violent time she never gave up hope. The reverberations from her shattered world continue today as Native Americans suffer from alarming rates of disease, suicide and mental illness. Like Susan, these modern day medicine women from the Omaha, Lakota and Navajo tribes are fighting a war and sharing a confident, even joyful, approach to the work of healing.

RED POWER ENERGY is a documentary film that combines engaging storytelling with in-depth journalism. Told solely from the Native perspective, with a nearly all-Native film crew and all-Native Advisory Council, the film features Western and Great Plains American Indian tribes from North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. First-person stories illustrate the complex realities of American Indian reservations grappling with how to balance their natural resources with their traditional beliefs.

This revelatory documentary brings to light the profound and overlooked influence of Indigenous people on popular music in North America. Focusing on music icons like Link Wray, Jimi Hendrix, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Taboo (The Black Eyed Peas), Charley Patton, Mildred Bailey, Jesse Ed Davis, Robbie Robertson, and Randy Castillo, RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World shows how these pioneering Native American musicians helped shape the soundtracks of our lives. Winner of a Special Jury Award for Masterful Storytelling at the Sundance Film Festival and Best Documentary at Hot Docs.

When you hear the phrase "Native American music" you may not think of tubas, trumpets, and Sousa marches. Yet, this rich musical tradition has long been a part of Native American culture.

Experience the Native American music scene like never before and get an inside look at contemporary Indian life in this unexpected and engaging half-hour documentary, Sousa on the Rez: Marching to the Beat of a Different Drum.

Indigenous dancers Sean and Adrian challenge the rulebook of San Manuel's Native American Sweetheart Special as they attempt to compete in the annual couple's competition. Dancing not only against the other dancers, but against the drums of oppression and closed-mindedness, this two-spirit couple is determined to rewrite the rules of "one man, one woman" with their resplendent charisma, character and resilience.

Walter Littlemoon is a 69-year-old Lakota man born and raised in Wounded Knee, South Dakota. At the age of five, he was removed from his family to attend a Federal government boarding school where his culture, language and spirituality were suppressed. THE THICK DARK FOG profiles Walter's journey to heal himself and his community while reclaiming his heritage. The film's title comes from Walter's own self-diagnosis of the state-of-mind that he lived in for so many years until he began to tell his story and heal from his childhood trauma. As time has passed, more positive accounts have surfaced from Native Americans about their school experiences such as being saved from poverty and making life-long friends.

Emmy nominated documentary, Walking into the Unknown, traces the intimate journey of a middle aged American Indian male through the health care system as he gains a deeper understanding of himself and the health risks he faces.

In this award-winning documentary, Cecilia Fire Thunder- the first female President of the Oglala Sioux tribe, defies a proposed South Dakota law criminalizing all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest, by threatening to build a women's clinic on the sovereign territory of the reservation. She ignites a political firestorm that sets off a chain reaction in the lives of three young Lakotas on the Pine Ridge Reservation, forcing each of them to make choices that define who they are and the kind of adults they will become.