Inaugural Jamaica Plain Film Festival Celebrates Diversity on Screen Sept. 5-7
“Works from filmmakers with ties to Jamaica Plain will be screened during the inaugural Jamaica Plain Film Festival, Sept. 5-7, at the Loring Greenough House…
Saturday evening will showcase Dawnland, directed by filmmakers Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo. The 2018 feature-length documentary won an Emmy award for Outstanding Research. It centers on an investigation into the history of Native American children and their interactions with state child welfare authorities in Maine.”
“Works from filmmakers with ties to Jamaica Plain will be screened during the inaugural Jamaica Plain Film Festival, Sept. 5-7, at the Loring Greenough House.
Founded by Alice Hutton, the co-director of programs for the Loring Greenough House, and Yenaba Sesay Davies, the three-day festival will take place on the property of the Loring Greenough House. Attendees are asked to bring their own seating; all films are ticketed.
Hutton, who has a journalism background, contacted filmmakers with Jamaica Plain ties about eight months ago when she first conceived of the idea for the festival: “[I] thought, ‘What's the best way to throw the umbrella as wide as possible?' So I just made a lot of calls,” she told the Boston Globe…
Saturday evening will showcase Dawnland, directed by filmmakers Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo. The 2018 feature-length documentary won an Emmy award for Outstanding Research. It centers on an investigation into the history of Native American children and their interactions with state child welfare authorities in Maine.”
Continue reading at Rock 92.9.
The first-ever Jamaica Plain Film Festival highlights voices from the neighborhood
“The first Jamaica Plain Film Festival will take place Sept. 5-7 at the Loring Greenough House, showcasing dynamic works by filmmakers with neighborhood ties…
Saturday evening will feature “Dawnland,” directed by local filmmakers Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo. The 2018 feature-length documentary won an Emmy award for Outstanding Research and centers on an investigation into the history of Native American children being forcefully displaced by state child welfare authorities in Maine.”
“The first Jamaica Plain Film Festival will take place Sept. 5-7 at the Loring Greenough House, showcasing dynamic works by filmmakers with neighborhood ties.
Festival founder Alice Hutton moved to Jamaica Plain in March 2020 from London. In 2021, she joined the Loring Greenough House, where she serves as co-director of programs. The community-centered, evening events invite locals and food trucks to gather in the garden and grounds of the 18th-century Sumner Hill former residence; this year, it runs through October.
Hutton was encouraged by the Thursday series’ popularity to organize the three-day film festival, with the help of co-founder Yenaba Sesay Davies. Films are ticketed and will be screened on the property’s lawn; attendees are asked to bring their own seating, such as blankets or low-seat, folding chairs…
Saturday evening will feature “Dawnland,” directed by local filmmakers Ben Pender-Cudlip and Adam Mazo. The 2018 feature-length documentary won an Emmy award for Outstanding Research and centers on an investigation into the history of Native American children being forcefully displaced by state child welfare authorities in Maine.
Upstander Project — a Boston-based organization that produces impact-centered documentary films, including “Dawnland,” and likewise educational and advocacy work — will speak prior to the screening, with Mazo, who lives in JP, joining for a Q&A following. The North American Indian Center of Boston will also present at the pre-screening Beer Garden reception to educate attendees about the status of Native American rights in Massachusetts. “Because of our work with ‘Dawnland,’ I’ve grown very connected to making sure that we’re being better neighbors and collaborating with folk from the Massachusetts tribe at Ponkapoag,” said Mazo. “[That we’re] learning and teaching those stories, as well, which is really critical to the work that we do.”
Continue reading at The Boston Globe.
Jamaica Plain Film Festival Highlighting Local Filmmakers This Weekend
“The three-day Jamaica Plain Film Festival (JPFF) is this weekend and will be screening the work of local filmmakers from Jamaica Plain, other parts of the city, and New England.
Award-winning journalist JPFF co-founder Alice Hutton said, “We hope to showcase the incredible talent in Jamaica Plain and New England, provide a platform for diverse, marginalized voices and open up space for people to come together in difficult times.”
“The three-day Jamaica Plain Film Festival (JPFF) is this weekend and will be screening the work of local filmmakers from Jamaica Plain, other parts of the city, and New England.
Award-winning journalist JPFF co-founder Alice Hutton said, “We hope to showcase the incredible talent in Jamaica Plain and New England, provide a platform for diverse, marginalized voices and open up space for people to come together in difficult times.”
The festival is taking place Sept. 5-7 in the gardens of the Loring Greenough House where Hutton is also the programs director. The festival is being co-presented with Imag9ne Media. The Hive beer garden and Streetcar will host pre-film receptions on the lawn…
Some of the films being screened include:
• Salma’s Home is the feature debut of Jamaica Plain-based Palestinian-Jordanian director, Hanadi Elyan, on three generations of Jordanian women. Q&A afterwards with the filmmaker.
• Dawnland is an Emmy-winning documentary on stolen native children in Maine, by Jamaica Plain-based director Adam Mazo, and The Upstander Project. Q&A afterwards with Mazo.”
Continue reading at Jamaica Plain News
Late American Indian activist shines in 'Dawnland,' 'Georgina'
“All of the Conestoga remains were not “returned to their original resting places” in 1979.
The Central Park staff retained the finger bones from an Indian child’s hand and displayed them for the public along with other artifacts uncovered during the excavation.
Georgina Sappier, a Lancaster resident and originally a Passamaquoddy from Maine, said no one should be treated like that. Sappier led an effort that resulted in the ceremonial reburial of the child's hand bones and other bone fragments at the site in 1987.”
“Along Golf Road in Lancaster County Central Park, near the covered bridge to the Kiwanis Park section, a boulder stands atop a high point between the Conestoga River and Mill Creek.
Bolted to the boulder is a bronze plaque, explaining County Park construction workers accidentally uncovered an Indian cemetery in the spring of 1979.
The workers paused while archaeologists excavated the site. They found 12 Conestoga-Susquehannock graves filled with bodies and artifacts dating to the early 18th century. According to the last sentence on the plaque, the remains were “returned to their original resting places.”
Continue reading at LancasterOnline.
Award-winning 'Dawnland' screens May 10
“The culminating event of the Waldo Reads Together program is a showing of the documentary "Dawnland" Wednesday, May 10, at 6 p.m. at Belfast Free Library, 106 High St. There will also be a post-viewing discussion led by WRT facilitators. This program is free and open to the public.”
“The culminating event of the Waldo Reads Together program is a showing of the documentary "Dawnland" Wednesday, May 10, at 6 p.m. at Belfast Free Library, 106 High St. There will also be a post-viewing discussion led by WRT facilitators. This program is free and open to the public.
For most of the 20th century, government agents systematically forced Native American children from their homes and placed them with white families. As recently as the 1970s, one in four Native children nationwide were living in non-Native foster care, adoptive homes or boarding schools. Many children experienced devastating emotional and physical harm by adults who tried to erase their cultural identity.”
Read more at The Republican Journal.
Film ‘Dawnland’ recounts ‘history that isn’t usually taught’
“When someone hears the phrase “truth and reconciliation commission,” South Africa usually comes to mind. But the Emmy-winning 2018 film “Dawnland,” which will be shown for the public next Thursday, March 30, at 6:30 p.m. in the Bromfield School’s Cronin Auditorium, brings the idea much closer to home.”
“When someone hears the phrase “truth and reconciliation commission,” South Africa usually comes to mind. But the Emmy-winning 2018 film “Dawnland,” which will be shown for the public next Thursday, March 30, at 6:30 p.m. in the Bromfield School’s Cronin Auditorium, brings the idea much closer to home.
“Dawnland” tells the story of the first truth and reconciliation commission to be established in the United States. Set up by Maine in 2012, its mission was to gather information on the state welfare agency’s practice of removing Native American children from their parents and placing them in foster care or adoption with white families—a practice that continues to this day. The federal government began to encourage adoption and foster care for Native American children in 1958, as a replacement for the earlier policy of sending the children to boarding schools.”
Continue reading at The Harvard Press.
Teaching Indigenous Peoples' Day with the Documentary Dawnland
“About a year ago, a mesh orange fence showed up in a section of a park my family frequents. A tree near the mesh fencing was adorned with stuffed animals at its base; signs offered the explanation. The mesh fence was there to demarcate sacred land. This end of the park was a burial site of children who once attended an expansive Indian school in this part of Albuquerque. The school sprawled across acres. A street crossing through the area still reflects this past: Indian School Road.”
“About a year ago, a mesh orange fence showed up in a section of a park my family frequents. A tree near the mesh fencing was adorned with stuffed animals at its base; signs offered the explanation. The mesh fence was there to demarcate sacred land. This end of the park was a burial site of children who once attended an expansive Indian school in this part of Albuquerque. The school sprawled across acres. A street crossing through the area still reflects this past: Indian School Road.
The city is involved in an extensive process to determine what will be done on this land; how the city will commemorate the lives lost there, but the more complicated reality for our community and for many others across North America is how to navigate an ugly past in which Native American and First Nations children were forcibly removed from their families to be raised in boarding schools or in white families. In both cases, being forcefully separated from their families, heritage, language, and traditions.”
Continue reading at Video Librarian.
Imagine Studios to present 'Dawnland' on March 30
A screening of Dawnland with a panel Q&A is being hosted on 3/30/2022 by The First Religious Society, Unitarian Universalist Church, Congregation Ahavas Achim, Unity on the River, Theater in the Open, and Imagine Studios as part of the Newburyport Indigenous Peoples’ Day Initiative.
“Did you know that for decades, child welfare authorities were removing Native American children from their homes to “save them from being Indian?” It didn’t happen long ago and far away, but in the state of Maine in the late 20th century. Find out more about it when Imagine Studios presents a free screening of Upstander Project’s documentary “Dawnland” streamed online on Wednesday, March 30, from 7 to 9 p.m.
“This is an opportunity for people to see the film,” said Kristine Malpica, executive director of Imagine Studios. “It’s about the legacy of what happened to the native peoples of Maine. The screening is one piece of a larger collaborative Indigenous Peoples’ Day Initiative to bring cultural awareness through education, arts and music events.’”
Continue reading at Wicked Local.