INDIGENOUS SHORTS
The island of O'ahu is covered with coconut palms, but for fear of liability the vast majority of these sacred trees have been stripped of coconuts. The grassroots movement "Niu Now" is on a mission to restore the "niu," or coconut, as a fundamental food crop in Hawai'i and spread the Indigenous wisdom of "aloha 'āina:" loving land and serving people.Director's Bio:Alex Cantatore is a director and cinematographer focused on communicating new ideas and old wisdom to better understand our relationship with the Earth and each other. He hails from White Plains, NY, studied at Emerson College in Boston, MA, and currently makes his home in San Diego, CA.
A true crime podcast host sits down with an Indigenous woman to record her sister’s cold case, but their intentions for telling this story come to a head as they examine the night in question.Director's Bio:Kanani Koster is a Kanaka Maoli director and has spoken on numerous panels on race, diversity and representation in film. Kanani is the 2020 Oregon Made Film Grant winner for the docu-short, Any Oregon Sunday, and a 2020 Portland Arts Museum Re:Imagined Artist recipient. The stories she strives to tell are not bound by genre but challenge nostalgia and tropes through inclusion and normalization of historically under-represented peoples on screen.
Tribal communities embark on a 300-mile run in solidarity to the headwaters of the Klamath River.Director's Bio:Shane Anderson is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and conservationist with a focus on socio-environmental issues in the American West. Native to the Pacific Northwest, his films have been broadcast nationally on PBS, utilized in education curriculums, and have driven impact campaigns that have led to positive conservation outcomes for rivers, forests, and wild fish.
Join Spring Alaska from Sakari Farms for this wonderful cooking demonstration on local Pacific Northwest ingredients and heritage. Salmon for example, plays a critical role in our shared ecosystem; and for centuries, has sustained our tribes living throughout the Columbia River Watershed.Director's Bio:Robert A. Cuadra is a husband, father, filmmaker (pixelmaker), and surfer. His work spans from music videos, commercials to documentaries and film narratives. He is an ex-military brat who has lived all over the world and the United States, inspiring his life-lesson mantra "Never remain idle.”
For Rosalie Fish, Indigenous student-athlete and activist, running isn’t just a sport — it’s how she represents the strength and resilience of indigenous women within her tribe and beyond. As we look forward to #IndigenousPeoplesDay, we are honored to share Rosalie’s story in our second episode of “Who is a Runner” – a docu-series collaboration with Brooks Running.Director's Bio:Tim Kemple graduated from college, "moved into" an old RV and wandered the world climbing rocks. Somewhere in there he picked up a camera, and years later, he can still climb 5.14, but is far more well-known for his iconic images of world-class athletes in wild places for clients such as The North Face, Dodge Ram, BF Goodrich, Mitsubishi, Farm Credit and Amtrak. In recent years, he has gone deep into VR and 360 content for Jaunt VR, Yeti, TNF, Eastman and others, developing a rare early fluency with VR. He also thrives helming light and fast film crews, informing an epic yet intimate, authentic style apparent in recent digital campaigns for BF Goodrich, Eastman, The North Face and Macy's.Faith Briggs is a documentary filmmaker, creative producer and podcast host passionate about sharing contemporary stories from diverse communities. Both behind and in front of the camera, she works with brands, non-profit organizations, institutions and individual creatives to create media representative of the world we live in and the better one we are working together to create.
An ominous vision leads to bad news for Yanise and her family when she receives word of her grandfather’s passing. Unable to return to Puerto Rico immediately, Yanise arrives three months later and is welcomed by her mom, grandmother, and cousins. At breakfast, Yanise describes a recurring dream of being held in the ocean. Her grandmother recognizes it as a calling from Yemaya and shares a ritual that leads to a spiritual awakening and ultimately, a salve for Yanise's grief. Director's Bio:Alexis C. Garcia is an award-winning writer, director whose work has spanned film, TV, and digital. She created and served as showrunner of the Webby Award-winning series for BuzzFeed’s Pero Like channel, “Mi Quinceañera Come True,” and is a 2022 recipient of the LALIFF Inclusion Fellowship, sponsored by Netflix. Alexis is passionate about driving critical conversations that both inform and uplift the Latinx community.
A short film produced by the youth at the Warm Springs Community Action Team about the gathering of every native's first food…Spam. Director's Bio:LaRonn Katchia is an award-winning filmmaker and tribal member from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, OR currently pursuing a passionate filmmaking career in Portland, OR. His love and passion for film reside from the influence of the commonly mistreated portrayal of indigenous peoples in Hollywood films today. LaRonn has recently worked on a behind-the-scenes featurette for the FX hit show Reservation Dogs and helped shoot & edit the first all-indigenous episode of PBS's Roadtrip Nation.