Native Spirit Festival 2025 Call For Submissions opens Winter Solstice Saturday 21 December
November film programme NSF collaboration with NONAM North American part of special exhibition MOVE. Indigenous cultures on the move. on now – 16 March 2025
📽️ screenings November Tuesday — Sunday 13.30h • 14.30h • 15:30h Free admission for children 6-16, and members of amerindias
Kayaks glide silently over rivers and lakes, snowshoes carry you through snow-covered landscapes and surfboards provide the ultimate thrill in the surf. Kayaks and the like are as familiar to us as skis and bicycles, and lacrosse is also becoming increasingly popular in Switzerland. But where do the games and equipment that have long been part of our sports repertoire come from? If you want to know what kayaks and surfboards were once invented for, who needs to watch out for the snow snake and what sport and exercise have to do with making amends, you can find out here. Move invites you on a journey through moving worlds. Let’s move!
18th Native Spirit Film Festival
Save the Dates 11-19 October 2024 London
Join us for the best in Indigenous Cinematic Arts
Friday 11 October 2024, 6pm at Latin American House NW6. Comunidad Rimanakuy collaboration. Quechua community UK Premiere & Speakers: Once Upon A Time in The Andes by Rómulo Sulca. Tickets £6 | Trailer
Saturday 12 October 2024, 2-5.30pm at Pushkin House WC1A. Sakha-led event. Opening with Khomus (mouth harp) and Salama (sacred cord) ceremony. Triple bill UK Premieres: Yakutia – Between The Worlds documentary by Vladimir Kocharyan; Kyhynngy Oyuur’s animation Syppyt Suruktar / Lost Letters; and Aykuo, an experimental mystical work by Ayaal Adamov. Tickets £15/12 | Trailer links above
14-19 October, Monday to Friday 6-9.30pm, Saturday 12-8pm at XYZ, 5 Grays Inn Road, Chancery Lane, London WC1X 8PH.
SUGARCANE (2024) 107 min — A 2021 investigation of unmarked graves, abuse, and missing children at a Catholic Church-run Indian residential school ignites a reckoning in the lives of survivors and their descendants on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve, including the film’s co-director, whose father was born—and nearly buried—at the school.
Native Spirit Festival in collaboration with Reclaim the Frame UK London preview & panel conversation with Stephanie Land, Tweed
Thursday 27 June 2024 | 6.30pm at Rio Cinema, London, E8 2PB
Following her her acclaimed performance in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, Lily Gladstone delivers another powerful performance in Erica Tremblay’s FANCY DANCE, which begins as a road movie but gradually turns into a far deeper investigation into the complexities and contradictions of Indigenous women at the mercy of a failed justice system in a colonised world. Following her sister’s disappearance, Jax cares for her niece Roki, managing to scrape by on the Seneca-Cayuga Reservation in Oklahoma. When not occupied raising Roki, Jax desperately searches for her sister, With the threat of losing custody of Roki to her white grandparents looming, the two hit the road setting off a series of events that will change both their lives… In an assured and unpredictable feature debut, filmmaker Erica Tremblay creates an indelible depiction of hardship and joyful resistance that sheds light on the strength and resilience of Indigenous women who hold their communities together through both joyful and tragic times.
23 – 29 October 2023 6pm — 60+ films Art of Resistance exhibition Klee Benally, Pamela J Peters at The Muse at Portobello Road W11 —click here
Friday 3 November 2023 6.30pm — Sakha Double Bill
Tickets £12 — Pushkin House, Bloomsbury WC1A 2TA
Sunday 5 November 2023 2.00 – 4.15pm — Turtle Island Tales : Torcheu Aachimow 12 Shorts by Wapikoni Mobile filmmakers presented in-person by Jack Belhumeur followed by online conversation with Réal Junior Leblanc, Isabelle Kanapé and Manuel Kak’wa Kurtness.
OPENING NIGHT Tuesday 17 October 8pm — Pacific Filmmakers Triple Bill Q&A Nina Nawalowalo, Taratoa Stappard, Thomas Mullen, Moderated by Robin Monotti Graziadei
Taumanu (Reclaim) – Taratoa Stappard, 22′ 2022. New Zealand. 1929. When a parcel is delivered to a colonial manor house, mysterious Māori performers arrive to reclaim the contents. Soon the Māori head butler finds himself drawn into bloody, century-old vengeance.
The Brylcreem Boys – Rafer Rautjoki, 15′ 2022. Kara is tasked with discovering why her Uncle’s first love abandoned him on the opening night of his band’s national tour.
European Premiere A Boy Called Piano – The Story of Fa’amoana John Luafutu – Nina Nawalowalo | 57′ 2021 | 57 min. Arriving to New Zealand from Samoa as a young child in the 1950s, Fa’amoana was taken from his family and placed in state care, suffering terrible abuse alongside thousands of other Māori and Pasifika children. This documentary explores his journey through state care, prison, gang membership, as well as the intergenerational impacts of these experiences; and ultimately, healing for Fa’amoana and his Family through harnessing the power of his voice as a storyteller.
Wednesday 18 October 2023 7pm — Whetū Mārama – Bright Star Q&A (online) Dir. Toby Mills, Aileen O’Sullivan
Director: Erica Tremblay (Seneca-Cayuga), 2023, 91 mins. Cast: Lily Gladstone, Isabel Deroy-Olson, Ryan Begay
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