Sundance puts spotlight on Indigenous films
“Hensel is among nine Indigenous filmmakers featured at this year's acclaimed Sundance Film Festival, telling stories of traditions, ambitions and aspirations in short and feature-length films and multimedia productions. The festival runs Jan. 20-30 in Park City, Utah, but will not feature in-person events this year because of the pandemic.”
“For Cherokee filmmaker Brit Hensel, the Sundance Film Festival is a chance to showcase not just a groundbreaking film but also her people.
Her film, “ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (Udeyonv),” or “What They’ve Been Taught,” which premieres Thursday, Jan. 20, at 9 a.m. MST, explores reciprocity among the Cherokee people as told through an elder.
The film features not just a Cherokee director but an all-Cherokee film crew.
“Filmmaking for me has always carried with it an element of responsibility — a responsibility to whose story I'm sharing, to my community, my collaborators, to myself and my vision,” Hensel, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, told Indian Country Today.”
Continue reading at Indian Country Today.
New Film ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They've Been Taught) to Make World Premiere at 2022 Sundance Film Festival
ᎤᏕᏲᏅ "Udeyonv" (pronounced oo-de-yo-NUH), a new documentary short film by Brit Hensel with Keli Gonzales, is an official selection in the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. This film is one of seven films from season one of Reciprocity Project, a co-production of Nia Tero and Upstander Project.
“Today the Sundance Film Festival announced that ᎤᏕᏲᏅ , a new documentary short film by Brit Hensel with Keli Gonzales, is an official selection in the 2022 festival. According to the Sundance Institute, Hensel is the first woman who is a citizen of Cherokee Nation to direct an official selection at the festival. The film's world premiere will be held in-person in January 2022 in Park City, Utah, as well as online from January 20th – 30th. ᎤᏕᏲᏅ "Udeyonv" (pronounced oo-de-yo-NUH) is one of seven films from season one of Reciprocity Project, a co-production of Nia Tero and Upstander Project.
Hensel is the first woman who is a citizen of Cherokee Nation to direct an official selection at Sundance.”
Continue reading at Yahoo News.
Yo-Yo Ma visits the Grand Canyon to play and listen to Indigenous perspectives
This piece looks at the famous cellists second trip in “a project to explore how culture can help us strengthen relationships to nature and to each other.” His first trip, to Maine, is documented in one of Reciprocity Projects forthcoming short films.
“The world’s most famous cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, visited the Grand Canyon in November not to play, but to listen. He listened to the Canyon itself and the perspectives of the Indigenous people connected to the Canyon for generations.
“I really liked the purpose and the focus of his visit,” said Ed Kabotie, a Hopi-Tewa musician who met with Ma. “It’s important to recognize that there are many intimate perspectives in this discussion, the perspective of the Hualapai, the Havasupai, the Navajo, the Hopi, the Zuni. It was a good group of voices, to interact with him.
Yo-Yo Ma visited the sacred American landscape to explore how its lessons about time, nature, and how the relationship to both can help shape a better future together.”
Continue reading at The Navajo-Hopi Observer.
Penobscots don’t want ancestors’ scalping to be whitewashed
“In “Bounty,” the three participants describe having nightmares of Penobscots being chased through the woods, and discuss the dehumanization and massacre of their people.
“When you learn about a people’s humanity, that affects how you treat my kids, how you vote on public policy, how you may view my people,” Dana said.”
“Most Americans know about atrocities endured by Native Americans after the arrival of European settlers: wars, disease, stolen land. But they aren’t always taught the extent of the indiscriminate killings.
Members of the Penobscot Nation in Maine have produced an educational film addressing how European settlers scalped — killed — Indigenous people during the British colonial era, spurred for decades by cash bounties and with the government’s blessing.
“It was genocide,” said Dawn Neptune Adams, one of the three Penobscot Nation members featured in the film, called “Bounty.”
She said the point of the effort isn’t to make any Americans feel defensive or blamed. The filmmakers say they simply want to ensure this history isn’t whitewashed by promoting a fuller understanding of the nation’s past.”
Continue reading at Associated Press Maine.
New documentary explores gruesome details of death warrant for Penobscot people
“According to filmmakers, there were more than 100 government-issued scalp bounties like the one signed in 1755 in Boston. Those bounties were issued in the U.S. from 1675 to 1885 and resulted in settlers claiming at least 90 bounties in the New England area.”
“The poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou said, “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”
Dawn Neptune Adams understands and has been exploring history’s wrenching pain against her people in a new documentary. Adams and other filmmakers at Upstander Project are trying to teach others through a short documentary called "Bounty."
Three families in Maine — all members of the Penobscot Nation — brought their children to the Old State House in Boston, to the room where a proclamation was signed close to 250 years before. Issued by the government, the proclamation promised to pay settlers to kill Native Americans.
The film takes place here. “
Continue reading at News Center Maine.
The erasure of Indigenous People’s history
An opinion piece written by Dawn Neptune Adams, Maulian Dana, and Mishy Lesser for the Boston Globe. This writing focuses on how false narratives are the foundation upon which big lies are built. Instead, let us acknowledge history and celebrate what our presence here today signals.
“It has been said that Indigenous People are vulnerable. We can say unequivocally that we are not. We are targeted, marginalized, and silenced.
As citizens of Penobscot Nation, our children are not free to care for the land and river that shares our name. We were not free to live with our parents without fear of the state taking us. Our parents were not free to participate in our traditional ceremonies. Our grandparents were not free to learn our ways without fear of the state kidnapping them to internment camps, euphemistically called boarding schools. Our great-grandparents were not free to vote or be US citizens.”
Continue reading at The Boston Globe.
'Bounty' reveals government-backed scalp bounties on Maine's indigenous people during 1700s
Read a review based on a conversation with filmmaker Dawn Neptune Adams.
“A documentary produced by members of Maine’s Penobscot Nation is bringing attention to atrocities committed against Native Americans.
The film “Bounty” brings to light the government-placed scalp bounties placed on the Penobscot people in the 1700s.
“I'd like you to know that history is not what you were taught, and there is a lot more to know,” co-producer Dawn Neptune Adams said.
Adams cautions that the lessons the film teaches could be disturbing to some.
“Film contains potentially upsetting conversation,” Adams said. “Viewers are going to be introduced to information that they've probably never heard before,” Adams said.
In addition to being Bounty’s co-producer, Adams is one of the film’s key Penobscot figures, along with her son.”
Continue reading at WMTW.
266 years ago, New England colonists were legally allowed to kill Penobscot people
“Things like this live in the collective consciousness of the community,” Adam Mazo said. “We deserve to know the full truth of our history.”
“Difficult conversations are exactly that — difficult. But, more often than not, they are vital to have, so that all parties involved can learn, atone, heal and grow.
That’s one of the reasons why Maulian Dana, Dawn Neptune Adams and Tim Shay, all members of the Penobscot Nation, decided to collaborate with the filmmakers at the Upstander Project on a short film, “Bounty,” that details one of countless painful chapters in the history of Indigenous people in North America.
“Bounty,” available to watch for free online at bountyfilm.org, shows Dana, Adams and Shay reading aloud to their children the Phips Proclamation of 1755, one of the dozens of government-issued bounty proclamations that directed colonial settlers to hunt, scalp and kill Indigenous people for money.”
Continue reading at Bangor Daily News.