This week's Vision Maker Media film focuses on Arapaho elder Stanford Addison, a quadriplegic spiritual leader who trains wild horses on the Wind River Reservation. Told primarily in the voices of Addison and those around him, "Silent Thunder" demonstrates Addison's unique method of training horses -- and people -- while encouraging them to keep their … Continue reading Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: Silent Thunder

In this week's Vision Maker Media film, Monique Verdin returns to Southeast Louisiana to find a place with her Houma Indian family, and becomes a witness to the impact of decades of environmental degradation.  As Monique's losses mount, she finds herself turning to environmental activism, documenting her family's struggle to stay close to the land … Continue reading Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: My Louisiana Love

This week's featured Vision Maker Media film follows Cory Mann, a Tlingit businessman hustling to make a dollar in Juneau, Alaska, as he follows an impulse to spend a summer smoking salmon the way his great-grandmother used to do. "Smokin' Fish" interweaves the story of Mann's family, his bills and his business with the untold … Continue reading Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: Smokin’ Fish

This week’s featured Vision Maker Media film focuses on Native American marching bands, their history, and their players' relationships with American and Western music. The film contains interviews with musicians in Native American bands and features both contemporary and historical footage of Native players. "Sousa on the Rez" examines the history of American marching music, … Continue reading Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: Sousa on the Rez

This week's featured Vision Maker Media film focuses on the discovery of a 9,000-year-old skeleton on the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, which reignited the battle between anthropologists and Indian people over the control of human remains found on ancestral Indian lands. "Who Owns the Past?" shows how the controversy that surrounded … Continue reading Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: Who Owns the Past?

In the 1930s, a group of elders from the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin participated in FDR's Works Progress Administration Writers Project and shared stories of their life on the farm. In numerous journals written in Oneida, the elders recall historical personal accounts of detrimental land-grabbing policies, and the devastating impact of small pox and boarding … Continue reading Forty Films, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: The Oneida Speak

This week's featured Vision Maker Media film is an eye-popping, mind-jolting mix of animation, music and real voices collected from interviews with Native Americans across the country to create a distinct view of modern America from a uniquely contemporary Native American perspective. Told through nine short films that cover such topics as language preservation, sacred … Continue reading Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: Injunuity

The Navajo Marines who used their language as an essential defensive weapon during WWII tell their story in this week's award-winning Vision Maker Media film. Using archival footage and first-person interviews, the 1982 film was one of the first documentary features to present the history of the Navajo Code Talkers after decades of classified secrecy, … Continue reading Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: Navajo Code Talkers

This week's featured Vision Maker Media film, "Hand Game," explores the mythic and historic roots of contemporary gambling in the Northwest Native Society through a look at the traditional hand game (also called "stick game" or "bone game"). Traveling from reservation to reservation and meeting engaging and colorful players, the filmmakers show how traditional ways … Continue reading Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: Hand Game