Documentary
For 50 years, controversial ethnographer John Peabody Harrington crisscrossed the United States, frantically searching and documenting dying Native American languages. Harrington amassed over a million pages of notes on over 150 different tribal languages. Some of these languages were considered dead until his notes were discovered. Today tribes are accessing the notes, reviving their once dormant languages, and bringing together a new generation of language learners in the hope of saving Native languages.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
Deerfoot of the Diamond
LaDonna Harris: Indian 101
The Lost Spirits
Language Does Not Lie
Omegäng
Fox & Penguin
The Life and Legacy of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte
Mitakuye Oyasin
Gyani Maiya
Mankiller
Sweetheart Dancers
Say Her Name
Somebody's Daughter
Scenes from the Glittering World
I Stand: The Guardians of the Water
Simon and the Spirit Bear
First Daughter and the Black Snake
The Shaman's Apprentice
For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska
Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier
SIMILAR MOVIES
Deerfoot of the Diamond
IMDB 10 | Sep , 2022
In late 2021, Cleveland’s baseball team was reborn as the Guardians. This documentary, directed by Lance Edmands, chronicles the saga of that name change, which has its roots in a forgotten legend named Louis Sockalexis, and the tragedy that enveloped his story more than a century ago.LaDonna Harris: Indian 101
IMDB 1 | Mar , 2014
A documentary film about Comanche activist LaDonna Harris, who led an extensive life of Native political and social activism, and is now passing on her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging Indigenous leaders.The Lost Spirits
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2009
The last surviving Native Americans on Long Island are the focus of The Lost Spirits. The film chronicles their struggles as an indigenous people to maintain their identity amidst relentless modernization and a heartless bureaucracy.Language Does Not Lie
IMDB 8 | Nov , 2004
Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), a professor of literature in Dresden, was Jewish; through the efforts of his wife, he survived the war. From 1933 when Hitler came to power to the war's end, he kept a journal paying attention to the Nazis' use of words. This film takes the end of 1945 as its vantage point, with a narrator looking back as if Klemperer reads from his journal. He examines the use of simple words like "folk," "eternal," and "to live." Interspersed are personal photographs, newsreel footage of Reich leaders and of life in Germany then, and a few other narrative devices. Although he's dispassionate, Klemperer's fear and dread resonateOmegäng
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2024
How is our dialect faring in the globalized age? When the "railroad age" began 160 years ago, Switzerland feared that High German would supplant the dialect. The opposite has happened. The dialect persists and continues to blossom.Fox & Penguin
IMDB 10 | Jul , 2021
How do German couples communicate in private? What are they arguing about? Is the way to a man’s heart really through his stomach? This docu-fictional hybrid production discusses such questions with the help of authentic interview snippets that were edited under the staged plot. We get an insight into the life of an animal couple, who experience typical everyday situations on behalf of us humans. At first, our fox is emotionally contained, while the penguin lady may get wild as hell. With a wink, the filmmakers hold up a mirror to the audience in the cinema.The Life and Legacy of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte
IMDB 0 | Sep , 2022
This short documentary tells the story of the life and legacy of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, an Omaha woman who became the first Native American physician.Mitakuye Oyasin
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2015
Lakota people from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota describe the ongoing struggle of their people.Gyani Maiya
IMDB 10 | Dec , 2019
“We left our language and started speaking others’. The girls have got married and have left for the villages. Boys are getting married in villages. It should be taught to children”. — Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda The Gi Mihaq (also known as Kusunda) was a semi-nomadic hunter and gatherer community that settled in villages around the mid-western Nepalese district of Dang. They have long lost their native language Mihaq (Kusunda), to acculturation and other barriers to active use. The community also lost their 83-year-old elder Gyani Maiya Sen-Kusunda in 2020, the most and the only known fluent Kusunda speaker then. Filmed in Kulmor in the Dang District in 2018, this openly-licensed documentary is a memoir of Sen-Kusunda in her own words and a biography of her people who were forced to leave their language and cultural identity. Kusunda is being revived by Kamala Sen Khatri, Sen-Kusunda’s younger sister, and Uday Raj Aaley, a local researcher who is the key interviewer for this film.Mankiller
IMDB 6 | Jun , 2017
The story of an American hero and the Cherokee Nation's first woman Principal Chief who humbly defied all odds to give a voice to the voiceless.Sweetheart Dancers
IMDB 9 | Feb , 2019
Sean and Adrian, a Two-Spirit couple, are determined to rewrite the rules of Native American culture through their participation in the “Sweetheart Dance.” This celebratory contest is held at powwows across the country, primarily for heterosexual couples … until now.Say Her Name
IMDB 0 | May , 2021
A short film highlighting the epidemic of missing indigenous men and women who have gone missing in Bighorn County, Montana. It features several victims' stories and interviews with their families and indigenous activists who are pushing for their cases to be re-examined and solved.Somebody's Daughter
IMDB 0 | Jan , 2020
Somebody’s Daughter focuses on higher-profile MMIW cases, some of which were raised during the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in December 2018. With historical points of reference, the victims’ and their families’ stories are told through the lens of the legal jurisdictional maze and socio-economic bondage that constricts Indian Country.Scenes from the Glittering World
IMDB 0 | Jun , 2021
At the farthest edge of the Navajo Nation, the purpose and future of the most remote high school in the continental United States is in question while three Indigenous youth grapple with ambitious dreams, family responsibilities, and the isolated nature of their community.I Stand: The Guardians of the Water
IMDB 5.2 | Mar , 2017
First hand interviews and on the ground footage give a stirring account of The Standing Rock Sioux Nation's and water protectors' opposition to the Dakota Access PipelineSimon and the Spirit Bear
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2002
While most teens spend their days in a self-absorbed haze, Simon Jackson was out in the world connecting with anyone who could help him save the spirit bear. For this, Simon became one of Time's Heroes of the Planet. It's a remarkable accomplishment for one so young, and an inspiring story for lovers of wilderness of all ages. But his devotion to the cause made him an outcast amongst his peers.First Daughter and the Black Snake
IMDB 5 | Apr , 2017
The “Prophecy of the 7th Fire” says a “black snake” will bring destruction to the earth. For Winona LaDuke, the “black snake” is oil trains and pipelines. When she learns that Canadian-owned Enbridge plans to route a new pipeline through her tribe’s 1855 Treaty land, she and her community spring into action to save the sacred wild rice lakes and preserve their traditional indigenous way of life. Launching an annual spiritual horse ride along the proposed pipeline route, speaking at community meetings and regulatory hearings. Winona testifies that the pipeline route follows one of historical and present-day trauma. The tribe participates in the pipeline permitting process, asserting their treaty rights to protect their natural resources. LaDuke joins with her tribe and others to demand that the pipelines’ impact on tribal people’s resources be considered in the permitting process.The Shaman's Apprentice
IMDB 0 | May , 2001
Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska
IMDB 0 | Nov , 2009
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 struggle to win justice is one of the great, untold chapters of the American civil rights movement, culminating at the violent peak of World War II with the passage of one of the nation's first equal rights laws.Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier
IMDB 0 | Nov , 1991
An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, with commentary from those involved, including Peltier himself.