Documentary
INAATE/SE/ re-imagines an ancient Ojibway story, the Seven Fires Prophecy, which both predates and predicts first contact with Europeans. A kaleidoscopic experience blending documentary, narrative, and experimental forms, INAATE/SE/ transcends linear colonized history to explore how the prophecy resonates through the generations in their indigenous community within Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. With acute geographic specificity, and grand historical scope, the film fixes its lens between the sacred and the profane to pry open the construction of contemporary indigenous identity.
MOVIE COMMENTS
SIMILAR MOVIES
My Name is Hungry Buffalo
Feather Fall
Tantoo Cardinal
Two Spirits
Les six saisons des attikameks
Blood Memory
Hail to the Breadsticks!
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
500 Years
Miwene
Sacheen: Breaking the Silence
Baraka
To Save a Language
Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege
The Bear Inside a Whale
Caribou Hunters
Yakutia — Between The Worlds
An Indian Story
Arctic Summer
Homeland
SIMILAR MOVIES
My Name is Hungry Buffalo
IMDB 3 | Oct , 2017
Jan calls himself Buffalo. He loves cowboys, he’s blind, and may lose his hearing. The documentary follows his journey to America to visit the chief of the Navajo tribe, who wants to perform a ritual to help his hearing. The film is full of unpretentious humor thanks to Jan’s charisma. In the USA, he’s like the Don Quixote of the Wild West - a naive adventurer in a world that is much more ordinary than his imagination. This observational, but not standoffish, film is also an example of how the medium of film can relate to blind people by constantly showing the difference between what Jan perceives and what we actually see.Feather Fall
IMDB 0 | Jun , 2025
This short documentary revisits Mi’kmaq territory, where an iconic moment was captured in 2013—igniting into a symbol of Indigenous resistance and halting fracking exploration on unceded lands.Tantoo Cardinal
IMDB 0 | Jun , 2021
A moving portrait of actress Tantoo Cardinal, travelling through time and across the many roles she’s played, capturing her strength and her impact—and how she shattered the glass ceiling and survived.Two Spirits
IMDB 4.3 | Jun , 2009
Fred Martinez was a Navajo youth slain at the age of 16 by a man who bragged to his friends that he 'bug-smashed a fag'. But Fred was part of an honored Navajo tradition - the 'nadleeh', or 'two-spirit', who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits.Les six saisons des attikameks
IMDB 0 | Dec , 1983
Blood Memory
IMDB 0 | Feb , 2019
This documentary reveals the untold history of America's Indian Adoption Era, a time when Native children were stolen from their families and forced to assimilate, the process itself designed to wipe out generations of culture.Hail to the Breadsticks!
IMDB 0 | Jun , 2023
Writer producer Donick Cary (The Simpsons, Parks and Recreation, Have a Good Trip, etc.) has been a huge fan of the Washington D.C. pro football team since before he could walk. Passed down from his dad, he was excited to pass the tradition onto his kids. Donick never questioned the team name and or Native American logo until one day, while watching a game, his 9-year-old son, Otis, asked him if it was racist. When Otis suggests they ask Native Americans how they feel, it sends the two on a cross-country journey full of unexpected surprises.Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
IMDB 7.6 | Jul , 2017
Documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history, a little-known story built around the incredible lives and careers of the some of the greatest music legends.500 Years
IMDB 5.9 | Apr , 2017
From a historic genocide trial to the overthrow of a president, the sweeping story of mounting resistance played out in Guatemala’s recent history is told through the actions and perspectives of the majority indigenous Mayan population, who now stand poised to reimagine their society.Miwene
IMDB 0 | Oct , 2022
Steeped in the long oral tradition of Waorani storytelling, Gange Yeti shares her own coming-of-age story as a young Waorani woman living deep within the Amazon rainforest. Following Gange and her community for over 11 years, the film captures her transition from a quiet teenager into a confident young mother at a critical turning point for her culture and rainforest. As the granddaughter of one of the last Waorani elders that lived in complete isolation before outside contact, Gange is determined to capture her grandmother’s unique experience while she still can -- balancing school, motherhood, and tradition along the way.Sacheen: Breaking the Silence
IMDB 0 | Apr , 2019
Revisiting the achievements of Sacheen Littlefeather, the first woman of color to utilize the Academy Awards to make a political statement.Baraka
IMDB 8.2 | Sep , 1992
A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.To Save a Language
IMDB 0 | Nov , 2020
Linguist Indrek Park has been working with Native American languages for over ten years. The film sees him recording the language of the Mandan tribe, who live in the prairies of North Dakota, on the banks of the Missouri River. The job involves a lot of responsibility, and he is running out of time – his language guide, the 84-year-old Edwin Benson, is the last native speaker of Mandan.Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege
IMDB 0 | Dec , 2005
Although the mountain volcano Mauna Kea last erupted around 4,000 years ago, it is still hot today, the center of a burning controversy over whether its summit should be used for astronomical observatories or preserved as a cultural landscape sacred to the Hawaiian people. For five years the documentary production team Nā Maka o ka 'Āina ("the eyes of the land") captured on video the seasonal moods of Mauna Kea's unique 14,000-foot summit, the richly varied ecosystems that extend from sea level to alpine zone, the legends and stories that reveal the mountain's geologic and cultural history, and the political turbulence surrounding the efforts to protect the most significant temple in the islands: the mountain itself.The Bear Inside a Whale
IMDB 0 | Jun , 2025
Stan Hill Jr. is a Haudenosaunee artist living in Miawpukek First Nation Reserve, Conne River, Newfoundland. In “The Bear Inside a Whale,” he and his family discuss racism, identity, religion, creation and art, along with the cultural extinction of the Beothuk of Newfoundland. Throughout the film, we follow Stan carving a bear out of a whale vertebra. And we visit The Rooms (museum) in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where Stan talks about viewing and reclaiming Indigenous artefacts.Caribou Hunters
IMDB 0 | Jul , 1951
A doc about the Cree and Chippewa people of northern Manitoba. Made in the mid 20th century, it is dated in tone, but provides insight into the vital relationship that existed between First Nations and the caribou herds that sustained them.Yakutia — Between The Worlds
IMDB 10 | Sep , 2024
A documentary road movie. Traveling across his homeland, the filmmaker explores what Yakut cinema is, and what it means to the Sakha people and to himself.An Indian Story
IMDB 6 | Mar , 1962
Still photographs and narration give an overview of the history of the American Indian.Arctic Summer
IMDB 0 | Feb , 2021
ARCTIC SUMMER is a poetic meditation on Tuktoyaktuk, an Indigenous community in the Arctic. The film captures Tuk during one of the last summers before climate change forced Tuk's coastal population to relocate to more habitable land.Homeland
IMDB 8 | Oct , 2000
Following four Lakota families over three years, Homeland explores what it takes for the Lakota community to build a better future in the face of tribal and government corruption, scarce housing, unemployment, and alcoholism. Intimate interviews with a spiritual leader, a grandmother, an artist, and a community activist from South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation reveal how each survives through family ties, cultural tradition, humor, and a palpable yearning for self-reliance and personal freedom.