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The United States celebrates October 8th, as Columbus Day with a holiday, few of us are aware however that it is also the Indigenous People’s Day.
While we Indians continue to populate the land that is not ours for financial benefits, we could assuage our guilt a little if we made ourselves aware of the stories that are being silenced. In the name of English , in the name of the Dollar, in the name of Globalization and in the name of Nothing.
After all we are the Generation X and we do not care to know what came before and what will come after. We are here and now and we are ME. Only.
A little knowledge of History and a little more sensitivity would not have us scream Columbus ! Columbus!! to a peppy beat or call our Heroes HITLER and STALIN. And If I remember right GHAZINI was a plunderer/ invader?

Not many films have been made to celebrate the diversity of the Native Peoples, be they in the Americas, Australia or Asia. Not something to be surprised about since we do not have many stories that are told by children or women either. It is the market they say, the demand being that the stories be told by Adult Alpha Males about what interests or satiates them. Which would roughly translate into every second film being a Thriller or a Farce.It would mean that these films are about a tiny miniscule of the human race , told by an even tinier percentage and thrust upon a very gullible populace. I would suggest that the ” Audiences of the world UNITE !! ” and set a Solidarity Day against this gross injustice. October 8th could also be the Indigenous Films Day.

Attempts have been made to redeem this skewed outlook at the world and of the world by some very iconoclastic Australians and New Zealanders. Others being the Inuit and the Maoris themselves who have ventured into this strange territory of filmmaking. Some were commercial successes and others art house blockbusters such as
WALKABOUT [Nicholas Roeg] , WHALE RIDER [Niki Caro] , RABBIT PROOF FENCE [Philip Noyce] , ATANARJUAT [Zacharias Kunuk] and TEN CANOES [Rolf De Heer] etc All these films have helped shape the future of indigenous films. At the first viewing most of these films are a political and social statement against the status quo, the fighting off of a colonial legacy but some have veered a different tangent and talk with pleasure of who they are. In their language with their people.
Ten Canoes is one such, having won the Jury award at Cannes in 2006 and was also nominated for Oscars in 2007 in the Foreign Language Section.
“This film is without precedent because it is set in pre-contact times, with an all native cast, with dialogues in their native tongue, where their Aboriginal culture is not defined by or subjugated to the Western world but is shown in its own right as a repository of wisdom, myth and sly humour” [ Channel 4 ]

World over Tribals or Aboriginals are invested with simplicity, a deep love of nature and system of social equality that bodes well in today’s world of greed and materialism. A lot of ‘Caste Hindu’ customs are borrowed from the original inhabitants of India much as we would like to deny or disassociate ourselves from such ‘tribal’ practices.

In India we have about 573 recognized tribes and many more ‘tribal’ people whom we have conveniently cocooned into the category of Scheduled Tribe and promptly forgotten about them. Our interest in them arises only if they take away seats in Engineering and Medical colleges which we say are rightfully ours.
Gonds, Bhils, Santhals, Oraons…. these are just names to us. The struggles by the Bodo, Jharkhandis or the Salwa Judum would provide amazing fodder for films if we only choose to look their way.
Dr G N Devy who runs the Tribal Academy of Tejgadh in Gujarat and Mahashweta Devi who has been writing stories about them for years now, work closely with these people, guarding their languages and documenting their folklore.To gain access into such communities should not be too difficult for a determined film maker.

In 2002 I spent a few weeks travelling and visiting grassroots projects especially in the North East. Association for India’s Development had recently funded a few toilets in the village of Dharikathi near Tezpur, Assam. All in the name of health and sanitation.This is what a MISHING woman, a grandmother, told me about what she thought of the toilets we had proudly ‘donated’.
“Why are you bringing this alien culture to our land? Now how will I socialize? I like to look at people, be in the open and talk while I shit, I have done this all my life ” [ translated of course ]

Now is that not interesting enough to be a plot point?
Or what about the effect of the 2005 Tsunami on the already dying populations of Sentinelese , Jarawa and the Onge in the Andamans?

Grants for Indigenous Films:

www.nationalgeographic.com
The All Roads Seed Grant Program funds film projects by and about indigenous and underrepresented minority-culture filmmakers year-round and from all reaches of the globe. The program seeks filmmakers who bring their lives and communities to light through first-person storytelling. Submission deadlines are quarterly on the 15th of each March, June, September, and December. Award notifications are made approximately six weeks after each of these dates.

www.turtleisland.org
provides a lot of information on Native Art and Films

Filmography for the uninitiated:

Waban-Aki:
People From Where the Sun Rises

And the Rivers Flow:
Hunting and Treaty Rights in a First Nations Community
Buffalo River Dene Nation

Broken Promises: Indian Trust | Indian Country Diaries | Vanishing Link

Homeland - Four Portraits of Native Action | Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis

The New World | Spirit Doctors | Mohawk Girls | The Trail of Tears | Trudell The Movie

Beneath the Clouds | Christmas in the Clouds | Mystic Voices - The Story of the Pequot War

Our Sacred Strength - Talking Circles Among Aboriginal Women | Topahdewin - The Gladys Cook Story

Totem | Two Worlds Colliding | Indian Country - Native Americans in the 20th Century | Green Green Water

Into The West | Black Cloud | The Spirit of the Game | A Seat at the Table | A Tribe of One | Our City Our Voices | Chiefs

The Spirit of Annie Mae | Never Ignored: The Story of AIM, the American Indian Movement | The Lost Bird of Wounded Knee

Song On The Water | Mushuau Innu - Surviving Canada | Sacred Land Film Project | Is The Crown At War With Us? | Blood River

Po’pay, A True American Hero | Standing Silent Nation | Strike at the Wind | Starchaser

The Business of Fancydancing | Yolnguboy | Yellow Fella

Native American Film Festivals:

www.iirm.org

Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. CineMas Albuquerque Latino Film Festival
Anchorage, Alaska, U.S.A. 3rd Annual Native Film Festival
Austin, Texas, U.S.A. 10th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival
Buenos Aires, Argentina, IX International Film Festival of Human Rights
Buenos Aires, Argentina, IX Festival Nacional de Cine y Video Documental, 2007
Buenos Aires, Argentina, VI International Festival of the Documentaries Three Continents: Asia, Africa and Latin America
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. Indigenous Film & Arts Festival
Duncan, British Columbia, Canada, Cowichan International Aboriginal Film Festival 2007
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 12th Annual Dreamspeakers Film Festival
Eugene, Oregon, U.S.A. The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival
Fargo, North Dakota, U.S.A. Fargo Film Festival Native American Voices
Inarintie, Finland, Indigenous Peoples’ Film and TV Production Festival
Kautokeino, Norway, The 11th Sami Film Festival
Kiev, Ukraine, “Steps”: International Rights Protection Film Festival
Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.A. Haskell Indian Nations University, Stories N’Motion Film Festival
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. Augsburg College Native American Film Series New Voices in Native Media
Montréal, Québec, Canada 17th Edition First Peoples’ Festival Film & Video Showcase/Présence authoctone
Moose Factory, Ontario, Canada, Weeneebeg Aboriginal Film and Video Festival
Moscow, Idaho, U.S.A. Sapatq’ayn Cinema
Northridge, California, U.S.A. 4th Annual Red Nation Film Festival
Nuremberg, Germany, 5th International Human Rights Film Festival Nuremberg
Palm Springs, California, U.S.A. Sixth Annual Palm Springs Native American Film Festival & Cultural Weekend
Papeete, Tahiti, 4th Annual International Oceania Documentary Film Festival
Paris, France, The Fifth International Human Rights Film Festival of Paris
Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A. Heard Museum Film Festival
San Francisco, California, U.S.A. imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
South Brisbane, Australia, Colourised Festival
Stuttgart and Leipzig, Germany, Indianer & Inuit, The North American Native Film Festival 2007
Sydney, Australia, Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival
Toppenish, Washington, U.S.A. Third Annual Yakama Nation Native American Film Festival
Toronto, Canada, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
Tulalip, Washington, U.S.A. Tulalip Film Festival
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival