New Dawns (Land & Culture Docs)

Normand Junior Tshirnish (Innu) • 6:31 • 2021 • Innu with Eng. Subtitles

A Naskapi grandmother passes on to her Innu granddaughter her experience, knowledge and culture as well as the patience and meticulousness that have characterized the first peoples of Canada for thousands of years. 

Normand Junior Tshirnish is a filmmaker from the Innu First Nation. Their dream, their life, is cinema. Their short film Nukum Mary was made in the summer of 2021 with Wapikoni Mobile, in co-production with Productions Nutshimit.

Aliss Germain (Innu) • 5:50 • 2021 • Innu with Eng. Subtitles

Aliss Germain remembers where she comes from. In this short documentary, she shares with us her ancestors’ knowledge.

Aliss Germain was born in Mashteuiatsh, an Ilnu community on the shores of Lac Saint-Jean. She translates from French into her mother tongue, Nehlueun. She also makes traditional tents, an activity she learned on her own. Aliss is passionate about culture in all its forms as well as archaeology. She has made two films in collaboration with Wapikoni and hopes to make more in the future.

Bawaadan Collective • 7:24 • 2021 • Canada • English

The making, sharing, and wearing of beadwork as a way of keeping culture alive.

The Bawaadan Collective formed in 2019, they self-produce their own Indigenous content. They are comprised of like-minded Indigenous artisans and accomplices who are interested in continually developing their collaborative approaches to modern artistic storytelling and film production processes. 

Brit Hensel (Cherokee) • 9:18 • 2022 • USA • English

Filmed on the Qualla Boundary and Cherokee Nation, ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught) explores expressions of reciprocity in the Cherokee world, brought to life through a story told by an elder and first language speaker. ᎤᏕᏲᏅ circles the intersection of tradition, language, land, and a commitment to maintaining balance. This film was created in collaboration with independent artists from both Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Brit Hensel is an Oklahoma based writer and award-winning filmmaker whose work focuses on Indigenous storytelling and environmental justice. A citizen of Cherokee Nation, she was recently awarded the 4th World Indigenous Media Fellowship and is a 2022 Tulsa Artist Fellow. Previously, Brit directed the documentary films, Zibi Yajdan (2019) and Native and American (2017). Brit’s films have screened both nationally and abroad, including Māoriland Film Festival. She was awarded NeXtGen’s 30 Under 30 and was a NeXt Doc Collective Film Fellow.

Steven Thomas Davies (Coast Salish) • 10:37 • 2021 • Canada • English 

After working as a clearcut logger in what is now known as the Clayoquot Sound, master carver and land defender Joe Martin reconciles his past by revitalizing the ancestral knowledge and artistic practice of the traditional Tla-o-qui-aht dugout canoe.

Steven Thomas Davies is a Coast Salish (Snuneymuxw/European-Canadian) filmmaker who was born and raised in the traditional territories of the Lekwungen speaking Peoples (now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt), W̱SÁNEĆ, and the Salish Sea. He makes films and media art that centre spiritual, cultural, and political themes, to reconnect with Indigenous histories and epistemologies to educate himself and share with others.

Rowen White (Mohawk), Mateo Hinojosa (Mestizo-Quechua) • 

“Seed Mother: Coming Home” is a poetic embodiment of the Indigenous Seed Rematration movement. Across Turtle Island, seed keepers carry the message of the grand rematriation of seeds and foods back into their communities. We enter the dreams of this movement, starting at the beginning: an animated vision of the Mohawk cosmogenealogy, in which life-sustaining foods and medicines sprout from the body of Sky Woman’s daughter, which is Mother Earth.  Seeds present their full beauty for us to fall in love, and so protect them. We are all called to return to relationship with our seeds, and to join this vital Indigenous- and women-led movement.

Rowen White is a Seed Keeper and farmer from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and a passionate activist for Indigenous seed and food sovereignty. She is the director and founder of Sierra Seeds, an innovative organic seed stewardship organization focusing on local seed and education, based in Nevada City CA. Rowen is the National Project Coordinator and advisor for the Indigenous Seed Keeper Network.

Mateo Hinojosa is a mestizo Quechua Bolivian-American storyteller and filmmaker based in California. Specializing in channeling collective voices and visions into creative expression, he has facilitated collaborative audiovisual productions and cross-cultural storytelling workshops with Native American youth, Argentine transgender prisoners, and climate justice activists. 

Directors - Darío Duarte Hernández, David Marcelino Cayetano (Nahuatl) / Editor - Carlos Villanueva • 18:28 • 2021 • Mexico • Spanish 

In the indigenous community of Zoquitipa, an old musician and a group of women preserves The Wand Dance against the world who forgot their traditions.

Adbeel Darío Duarte Hernández es originario de Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas; estudió la licenciatura en Letras Mexicanas en la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, en donde organizó un curso de náhuatl con el maestro y promotor de la cultura nahua, Nicasio Hernández, y con quién fue a Chiconamel, Veracruz para documentar la fiesta grande de la huasteca en su documental "NiXantolo". Gracias a ese trabajo pudo conocer a David Marcelino Cayetano, nahuahablante y defensor de derechos humanos de pueblos originarios de la comunidad de Zoquitipa en Tamazunchale, San Luis Potosí, quienes en conjunto realizaron el documental "El último viento" sobre la danza de las varitas.

Mike Morash • 17m • 2021 • Canada • English

The Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations of Vancouver Island, BC are decolonizing indigenous education. They are integrating language, tradition, and land-based skills into their school curriculum to save their culture from the brink of extinction and offer a different future for the next generations. 

Mike Morash is a director and editor based out of Victoria, British Columbia. "Working alongside the Nuu-chah-nulth Nations has had a truly profound impact on my relationship with Canada as a nation state. As children we all learned, to some degree, about the history of residential schools in our country but rarely, if ever, did we discuss the ongoing intergenerational effects of this history. Learning about these atrocities through first-hand accounts has been an eye opening experience, one that has motivated a newfound passion to aid these communities in the deconstruction of systems of marginalization and oppression. I hope to continue this line of work and expose more of these stories to the silver screen."

Jacob Bearchum, Taylor Hensel, Adam Mazo, Chris Newell, Roger Paul, Kavita Pillay, Tracy Rector, and Lauren Stevens • 13m • 2022 • USA • English & Wabanaki 

Featuring Passamaquoddy citizens Christopher Newell, Roger Paul, and Lauren Stevens; and Yo-Yo Ma.  Waponahkik (the people of the dawn land) bring gratitude to the sun where it first looks our way. Song and stories invite us to accept the new day and put behind us any harm done the day before.

Weckuwapok was made by a collective of storytellers with a shared affinity for all beings and uplifting Indigenous voices. We are 8 people creating story together. We are Passamaquoddy, Penobscot, Wolastoqey, Cherokee, Walla Walla / Northern Cheyenne, multicultural, and settler. Supporting us is a marvelous and diverse team including educators, program managers, advisers, editors, artists, and more who collectively make up the Reciprocity Project team.