Film Details | Red Nation Film Festival


Opening Night Feature CRUDE Director: Joe Berlinger 105 Minutes * Documentary Feature Three years in the making, this shocking investigative documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brothers Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) tells the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet—the infamous $27 billion "Amazon Chernobyl" case.Do you like eating asphalt and drinking petroleum? Neither do the natives of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Chevron, over a period of 3 decades has dumped over 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into the rivers, landfills, and underneath house. All of the wastewater and muck goes into the water streams, and pollutes the soils of the lungs of the earth, the rainforest. All this pollution causes cancer, birth defects, and kills many animals and plants. There is no clean water in the Ecuadorian Amazon either. That’s why we need you! Donate today and help us reach our goal of $50,000 to give to the Rainforest Foundation to help Amazonians get clean through water filters.

A TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL JACKSON – “Black or White” Music Video In Loving Memory of Michael Jackson Michael Jackson, was a childhood friend to Joanelle Romero, founder of Red Nation Film Festival, she was instrumental in the creation of the Native American dance scenes for Michael Jackson’s music video “Black or White 1991. To date these American Indian dancers were the highest paid dancers in music video industry. The jingle dress dancer in Black or White, is Joanelle’s daughter Sage (she was 5 years old then). Michael took hours and hours of photos of Sage while shooting the video and he used her image in his painting of angels at his Neverland Ranch. Michael Jackson was the leading force that launched Joanelle’s production company in 1991, which is the first American Indian women’s production company and since the production company's inception, has become an award-winning independent film production company. Joanelle Romero has known Michael since they were 10 years old.

EXCLUSIVE Closing Night Feature The Twilight Saga NEW MOON Director: Chris Weitz 130 Minutes * Feature New Moon starts at the Cullen's house on Bella Swan's eightenth birthday. As she opens a gift, the wrapping paper gives her a paper cut. Jasper, the newest vampire to take up the non-human diet leaps at her, and Edward jumps in between them to save her. He later decides to make a heart-wretching desicion to move away and leave Bella because he and his family are too dangerous for her. He lies to her and convinces her that he doesn't love her anymore. This destroys her. She lives her life for months without really living. She is in a "zombie-like" state because she just stayed in the house and didn't socialize. it is only until she goes to the movies to please her father Charlie that something happens. While walking around at night, she sees a group of drunken men. She walks up to them, remembering when Edward saved her from them. As she walks closer, she hears Edward's voice in her head telling her not to do anything stupid. She later discovers that whenever she does anything reckless or stupid she hears his voice subconsciously. When she drives down the street and sees two run-down motocycles, she automatically thinks of her Native-American friend Jacob Black to fix up the bikes. She though that would be the perfect stupid thing to do to hear Edward's voice again. She starts to get a life back while hanging out with Jake and doing dangerous things. Victoria comes back to Forks avenging her mate James things are only getting more dangerous for Bella, but she doesn't care. She is fed up and wants to do something so reckless and stupid to hear his voice for days. She jumps off a cliff, into a river because Jake said he would take her cliff diving. Victoria is in the river, and she almost drowns, but Jake saved her, because he is now a werewolf! Alice Cullen sees her jump off the cliff in a vision and thinks she is dead. She contacts Edward who is heart-broken. He rushes to Italy to the Volturi to be killed. But Alice and Bella fly to Italy and save him. Edward promises to never leave her again and to always look after her especially because of Victoria. So the Cullens move back in and order is restored.

RED NATION FILM FESTIVAL SHORT Director: Montano Rain & Joanelle Romero Editor: Montano Rain 10 Minutes Red Nation Film Festival Trailer of CURRENT and previous years Red is Green Carpets Events November 2008, Pre-Ocsar Screenings, On The Road New Mexico August 2009.

A JOURNEY THROUGH OUR MOTHER Director: Montano Rain 1 Minute The upcoming movie a Journey Through Our Mother is a trip to see what our Mother Earth's inhabitants and the animals are doing with global warming, and its purpose is to convince the human race that something needs to be done to help our Earth.

RED IS GREEN Environmental PSA Director: Joanelle Romero .30 Seconds American Indians Placed at the Forefront of Global Green Movement. Not since Iron Eyes Cody, 38 years ago, has there been an American Indian Environmental PSA – UNTIL NOW

THE UNIFICATION OF WISDOM Director: Cassidy Rast 10 Minutes We have arrived at an essential period in our history. It is necessary and crucial that we recognize the indigenous people of the world. If we lose the indigenous keepers of the land we will lose ourselves. The native peoples of the land in the world are the record keepers of Mother Earth. The time is now to recognize that we must preserve the wisdom of the record keepers or else their voice will be forever lost. This film explores and pulls together the heart of Mayan wisdom and indigenous prophecies. The title came from the inspiring Mayan elder known as Tata Pedro Cruz. The current state in our World is one of wonderment and uncertainty, excitement and redevelopments on many levels and scales. It is through this film that the four directions of the planets are brought together and the greatest indigenous prophecies are shared for all to learn from. Outside of indigenous consciousness there is a new awareness taking shape in the minds of people all over the world. Many people from the Western (New) world are beginning to believe that the end date of 2012 in the Mayan Calendar signifies a doomsday prophecy or end of the world. We are here to share a different story. The Unification of Wisdom is a vessel to help establish the connection each one of us has to the Mayan calendar and the wisdom from all four corners of the earth. The heart of modern day Mayan culture is explored in this film and for the first time looks at what Mayan beliefs are in regard to what the end of the Mayan Calendar means. As Time carries our lives closer to the unraveling of the Great messages contained in the Mayan prophecies we can observe the truth that they carry. We see that there is a correlation amongst many other indigenous cultures and in this message we bring forth the unification of wisdom. A bridge will be built for those viewing this film that will blend worlds and cultures together through making clearer the reality that we are not all that far from each other, and when we return back to the earth, we return home.

DREAMKEEPER The Myths & Legends of the American Indian. Director:Steve Barron Starring: Eddie Spears, Ali Sage Galesi, 86 Minutes * USA * Feature The film opens with Eagle Boy, a young man who is on a vision quest. It then cuts to the present where seventeen-year-old Lakota named Shane Chasing Horse is living on the Pine Ridge reservation. He is in trouble because he owes some money to a local gang, money he used to buy a beautiful ring for Mae Little Wounded, a girl he likes. Meanwhile, his mother asks him to drive his grandfather Grandpa Pete Chasing Horse, a storyteller, down to the powwow. Shane is reluctant. However, when the gang comes after him, Shane changes is mind and heads out to the powwow with his grandfather, who agrees to give him his truck once they reach the powwow. Grandfather tells Shane the story of a young Lakota man who tries /> how a up into son back in back is eager to American no. His man who lived relents and tells how Eagle an old woman Unceliga. quite She slays Unceliga, and prophetic them and accidentally drive their car off a cliff and into a lake while chasing with ride with them in also headed tells Shane many other stories: Another is rest of brings them the star a dream and Buffalo who sacrifices and the next of his truck along closer. led them not to trailer home. Shane Shane becomes in his and his The ending of wants to live entire tribe At the gather

BROKEN PROMISES Director: Melinda Janko 9 Minutes * USA * Short Documentary – Work in Process “Broken Promises” reports how the U.N. mishandled tribal conflicts in Rwanda resulting in the devastating loss of life and mass killing of nearly one million. Mother-to-be Eugenie Mukeshimana recounts for the first time her harrowing escape from the massacre and the inability of the U.N. to quell the rioting and mass killings. “It’s not that the U.N. didn’t know what was going on. It’s just that they were told not to do anything,” said Ms. Mukeshimana.Broken Promises takes viewers on an exploration of many international crises from the hostility between India and Pakistan in 1947, to the Arab/Israeli conflicts of the late 1940’s, to the slaughter of millions of Cambodian refugees by Pol Pot in the 1970s and the aforementioned hardships and genocides in Rwanda and Bosnia, to the present day oil for food scandal.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF YELLOW WOMAN Director: Camille Manybeads Tso 27 Minutes * Indian Country * Doc-Drama Short In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman is about a 13 year-old Navajo filmmaker who finds her own strengths through interviewing her Grandmother about their ancestral history. She imagines what it would be like to be her Great-Great-Great-Grandmother, Yellow Woman, who lived through the Navajo Long Walk (1864 - 1868).Camille Manybeads Tso (Navajo) learned the art of film making from the volunteer Indigenous youth media literacy collective, “Outta Your Backpack Media.” Camille has worked with OYBMedia since she was 9, and is currently the youngest youth mentor.Camille researched the time period, wrote a script of re-enactments of her family’s stories, recruited her cousins to help, made costumes, directed, filmed, acted, and edited this piece together. She even sang some of the songs in the soundtrack. The results are a beautiful film of the power of reclaiming oral histories. Performed by the descendants of Yellow Woman and filmed in many of the places where the events took place.

OUR LAND, OUR LIFE Director: Gwendolen Cates 74 Minutes * USA * Documentary Feature Eloquent and visually striking documentary portrait of Carrie and Mary Dann, two elderly Shoshone sisters, whose thirty-year battle with U.S. government over the rights to their own land has taken them to the Supreme Court…and beyond. George Gage, Beth Gage, Directors. This candid, intimate portrait of ballet great, Jock Soto, follows one Of the most recognizable and influential dancers of the America stage from his early roots on a remote Arizona reservation, through a career filled triumphant performances to his tremendously emotional retirement from the New York City ballet, at age 40, in 2005.

FOR THE NEXT 7 GENERATION / The 13 Grandmothers Director: Carole Hart 85 Minutes * USA * Documentary Feature In 2004, thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers from all four corners, moved by their concern for our planet, came together at a historic gathering, where they decided to form an alliance: The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. This is their story. Four years in-the-making and shot on location in the Amazon rainforest, the mountains of Mexico, North America, and at a private meeting with the Dalai Lama in India, For the Next 7 Generations follows what happens when these wise women unite. Facing a world in crisis, they share with us their visions of healing and a call for change now, before it's too late. This film documents their unparalleled journey and timely perspectives on a timeless wisdom.

RED NATION "NATIVE YOUTH FILMS" in Association with INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS / NEW MEDIA ARTS PROGRAM “Native Student Films” 100 minutes Lumbini Park Directed by Eve LaFountain (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) A Thousand Unsaid Words Directed by Katrina Montoya (Sault St. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) Nizhoni Directed by Annikka Frostad-Thomas (Kenaitze) The Hand Drum Directed by Stephanie Painter (Shoshone/Washoe/Oneida) I Never Knew Directed by Nicole Garcia (Navajo Nation) The Confession Directed by Talia London (Aleut Corporation) Kokopelli Directed by Melissa McKerchie (Sault St. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) Torn Emotion Directed by Jeff Barehand (Gila River/Navajo) CIA News Directed by Jonathan Sims (Acoma Pueblo)

ON SACRED GROUND Director: Charro Wongittilin 30 Minutes * USA * Documentary The peace and serenity that envelops Bear Butte Mountain in South Dakota seems an unlikely venue for activism. It is here, amid the bucolic grasses and flowers, the grazing Buffalo and wild life that the stage has been set for battle. While not Wounded Knee or Custer’s Last Stand it is still the stuff of history – and just as important to Native Americans. Whether they be Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Cheyenne or Cherokee, Bear Butte is a strong symbol of religious freedom and opposition to the white man’s continued ignorance, indifference and desecration of sacred Indian sites.“On Sacred Ground” follows the fight of the American Indian Nation and its supporters to overcome this ignorance through legislative efforts, use of media and hitting the pavement informing and enlightening those who, in many cases, have no idea the damage being done by their very presence.There is much to be gleaned from the elders who have gone before and those who would take their place in the hierarchy of the tribal lore. The red man and woman demand nothing - but elegantly requests respect for their beliefs, their shared history and sacred sites.

MARIA TALLCHIEF Director: Sandra Osawa 57 Minutes * USA * Documentary Accomplished biography of the legendary Native American ballerina who began dance lessons at age four in Oklahoma, left her Osage Indian Community shortly there after to find stardom in the Big Apple and later became near immortal by helping to establish the New York City Ballet while serving as the muse for her husband/choreographer, George Balanchine (The Nutcracker).

PEARL Director: King Hollis 117 Minutes * USA * Documentary Pearl Carter's dreams take flight in 1928 when this lively and determined 12-year-old Chickasaw girl from rural Oklahoma meets soon-to-be-famous pilot Wiley Post. Pearl discovers a passion for the thrills of flying. Encouraged by her father, she soon has her own plane and is piloting businessmen all over the state. In no time, she is a local celebrity with an established barnstorming career. Midway through her teen years she suddenly finds love, and her plans are sent into a tailspin. Can she find balance what she wants and what is expected of her? Must she sacrifice one dream for another, and if so, which one is more important? Pearl is a film about a daring young girl who, during the pivotal years in her life and United States history, resolves to live without boundaries. She finds, however, that her unconventional thirst for life sometimes conflicts with the reality of living it.

THROUGH THE EYES OF THE CHILDREN Director: Sgt. Barry Gordon 35 Minutes The video was produced as a training tool for police and RCMP, and also to educate students about the personal stories of abuse and assimilation at former church-run, government-funded residential schools for native children. The video also includes the historic apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper made last June in the House of Commons. Harper’s apology represents the the first formal apology from a Canadian prime minister to former students of native residential schools, which started in 1874. About 150,000 children were taught in these type of schools, most of which closed down in the 1970s.

THE CHIEFS PROPHECY: Survival of the Northern Cheyenne Nation Director: Leo Killsback 59 Minutes • USA • Documentary Feature Filmed on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana, The Chiefs’ Prophecy chronicles the history of Northern Cheyenne leadership. From the Creation of the first warrior societies and the elaborate Council of Forty Four Chief system, and through brutal wars with the United States Army and the Reservation era, the Northern Cheyenne have survived. The modern challenges of colonization, loss of culture, and loss of spirituality have taken toll of the new generation of leaders. The Cheyenne philosophies of peace (Ma’heo’e) can be a means to rebuild the broken spirits of the Northern Cheyenne People. What does the future hold?

JARIN - a fable By Jim, Knute, and Red Director: Myrton Running Wolf 27 Minutes * USA • Live Short The story is a present-day tale about legendary Native American athlete Jim Thorpe (Sac-N-Fox) coming back from the past to teach a boy from the Rez how to play football, and along the way some very hard life lessons. Jim is joined by celebrated Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne and Hall of Fame running-back Red “The Galloping Ghost” Grange.Although the story deals with some harsh realities of reservation life, the story is primarily a comedy/sport film with an uplifting message. Initially created for educational purposes (to introduce Native youth to contemporary and successful American Indians), the completed work has evolved into a strong stand-alone film.

FOR THE RIGHTS OF ALL: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska Director: Jeff Silverman & Phil Lucas 56 Minutes • USA • Documentary Feature In 1867, when the United States purchased the Alaska territory, the promise of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights didn't apply to Alaska Natives. Their non-violent struggle to win justice is one of the untold chapters of the American civil rights movement. "For he Rights of All" brings this remarkable story to life through dramatic reenactments, new interviews with witnesses, and a wealth of historic footage and photographs. Narrated by Peter Coyote.

POW WOW HIGHWAY Director: Jonathon Wacks Starring: A. Martinez, Gary Framer, Joanelle Romero 86 Minutes * USA * Feature Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, former Beatle George Harrison was a remarkable film producer through his Handmade Films production company. The company made more memorable films and independent triumphs than most people realize. Anchor Bay has just issued one of the less-known films that deserve a much bigger audience. Jonathan Wacks’ Powwow Highway (1988) is a look at Native Americans trying to deal with their marginalization and troubles, but with some remarkable humor and offbeat touches that merit it more of an audience than it received on first release. Buddy Red Bow (the underappreciated A Martinez) and Philbert Bono (Gary Farmer) are best friends who are moving through life the best they can, experiencing the usual prejudice over their heritage and struggling for a better life. Besides not being able to get their new car stereo working, they are not able to get their life working. Having to deal with things in a streetwise way, they become stuck in a unique quandary when Buddy’s sister Bonnie Red Bow (Joanelle Romero) gets in trouble. They have not been talking for a long time because she has not been making the best life choices, especially considering she has kids, which gets her arrested and put into jail. What will they do to get her out? Can they do anything to get themselves out of their own life trap?What could have been a dull or overly serious film has some moments of greatly timed humor and some moments that really celebrate life. Based on David Seals book, the Janet Heaney/Jean Stawarz screenplay is nicely paced and gives the actors some fine moments. When a film has the right combination of story and character like this does, it becomes a unique experience and takes you somewhere you have not been before. Powwow Highway really is the road less traveled.

The Ghost Riders Director: V. Blackhawk Aamodt 70 Minutes This Critically acclaimed documentary takes you on a journey unlike most so-called Native American docs. Filmed by award winning Native director V. Blackhawk Aamodt, The Ghost Riders is a spiritual journey into the heart of the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Ghost Riders opens up a door to the past, present and future of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one of the poorest and harshest areas in the United States, and the people who struggle to survive there. But surviving is not enough for the proud people whose blood lines go back to Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, bringing the old ways back and fighting the diseases brought by the new settlers (diabetes, alcoholism and drug abuse) is the new war cry. In 1890 the United States Army massacred over 300 unharmed Lakota Indians, most of who were woman, children and elders, the massacre was said to have broken the sacred hoop. It was then after this tragedy that the Holy man Black Elk proclaimed the people would mourn for 7 generations and that the children of the seventh generation would be the ones to mend the sacred hoop and begin the healing. So as it was prophesied, the seventh generation has risen to fight back against these diseases and hardships to bring back the culture and honor their ancestors. The Ghost Riders follows the organizers and riders as they embark on a 300-mile spiritual journey on horseback to honor themselves and the tribe. The ride is known as The Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride and follows the same path as the ancestors walked before being massacred. It would not be a Lakota ceremony without some suffering, so of course it takes place during the toughest time, winter. With temperatures on the average below zero, ground blizzards and the treacherous cliffs of the badlands the riders suffer through the two weeks on horseback. But with each day come a reason for riding, a reason for praying, a reason for continuing. Shot in a cinema verite' style, The Ghost Riders gives the audience an up close and intimate view of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation, that which only a Native filmmaker could be allowed to accomplish.