
By Blood
★ 5 · 2014 · 53m · Documentary
American Indians of African descent, or Freedmen, battle their own tribes and the federal government to regain their tribal citizenship. Witness how indigenous American Indian tribes, their minority members, and surrounding communities are confronting racism and intolerance.
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2018
Three intrepid women battle for Indigenous women's treaty rights.
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2017
A look into the 19th century American-Indian Wars, Manifest Destiny, and the conflicts between Apache tribes and the African-American Buffalo soldier regiments.
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Pride of the Buffalo Soldier
2017
African American soldiers throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries faced discrimination and segregation, yet many still chose to fight for their country.
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Contrary Warriors: A Film of the Crow Tribe
1985 · ★ 7
Examines the impact a century of struggling for survival has on a native people. It weaves the Crow tribe's turbulent past with modern-day accounts from Robert Yellow-tail, a 97-year-old Crow leader and a major reason for the tribe's survival. Poverty and isolation combine with outside pressures to undermine the tribe, but they resist defeat as "Contrary Warriors," defying the odds.
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As Long as the Rivers Run
1971
Examines the violence and civil disobedience leading up to the hallmark decision in U.S. v. Washington, with particular reference to the Nisqually Indians of Frank's Landing in Washington.
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Ceremony
2026 · ★ 10
When the Nuxalk trace the vanished ooligan to a land claim filed the very day smallpox arrived, their radio station becomes courtroom, confessional and conjuring ground; an older law insists: the fish return when the people do.
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Tribal Justice
2017
Two formidable Native American women, both chief judges in their tribe's courts, strive to reduce incarceration rates and heal their people by restoring rather than punishing offenders, modeling restorative justice in action.
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Lakota people from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota describe the ongoing struggle of their people.
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First Daughter and the Black Snake
2017 · ★ 5
The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.
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Inhabitants
2021 · ★ 9
For millennia, Native Americans successfully stewarded and shaped their landscapes, but centuries of colonization have disrupted their ability to maintain their traditional land management practices. From deserts, coastlines, forests, mountains, and prairies, Native communities across the US are restoring their ancient relationships with the land. As the climate crisis escalates these time-tested practices of North America's original inhabitants are becoming increasingly essential in a rapidly changing world.
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The Lost Spirits
2009
The last surviving Native Americans on Long Island are the focus of The Lost Spirits. The film chronicles their struggles as an indigenous people to maintain their identity amidst relentless modernization and a heartless bureaucracy.
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2017
Essence of Healing is a documentary exploring the life journeys of 14 American Indian nurses - their experiences growing up, their experiences in nursing school, and their experiences on the job. They are part of a larger story - a historical line of care and compassion that has run through hundreds of indigenous tribes for thousands of years.
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