| details | SEPTEMBER 22
Aleut Story
This is the incredible, untold story of Aleut Americans’ decades-long struggle for human and civil rights. In 1942, as World War II invaded Alaska, Aleut Americans were taken from their homes and removed to abysmal government camps 1,500 miles away. An estimated 10 percent of the men, women and children sent to the camps would die there, and as the Aleuts prayed for deliverance, “friendly forces” looted their homes and churches in the Aleutian and Pribilof islands.
OCTOBER 6
Finding Their Own
Dance: Reawakening
Alaskan Alutiiq Arts
The Alutiiq or Sugpiaq people are Native Alaskans whose long history includes a complex social structure based upon the rich maritime resources of the central Gulf of Alaska. Unfortunately, it also includes exploitation by both Russians and Americans and the Alutiiq arts and culture were nearly lost over the centuries of oppression. Recently, however, a cultural awakening has happened among the Alutiiq people and their dramatic history emerges in art and dance.
OCTOBER 20
The Drums of Winter
Dance was once at the heart of Yupik Eskimo spiritual and social life. It was the bridge between the ancient and the new, the living and the dead, and a person’s own power and the greater powers of the unseen world. The people of Emmonak tell us how their history, social values, and spiritual beliefs are woven around the songs and dances that have been handed down to them through the generations, and give a strong sense of the resilience of Yup’ik culture.
NOVEMBER 3
Atanarjuat
(The Fast Runner)
This epic, the first feature film made in the Inuit language, is not merely an interesting document from a far-off place; it is a masterpiece. It is much more than an ethnographic curiosity. It is, by any standard, an extraordinary award-winning film. Evil in the form of an unknown shaman divides a small community of nomadic Inuit, upsetting its balance and spirit. Twenty years pass. Two brothers emerge to challenge the evil order: Amaqjuaq, the Strong One, and Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner.
NOVEMBER 17
Make Prayers
to the Raven
The Koyukon people of Alaska are an Athabascan people closely adapted to their environment along the Koyukuk River. They retain traditional ways in spite of heavy influence from outside. In the Passage of Gifts, we are introduced to the people and their view of raven, as well as concepts of respect for the land and the idea of luck. In Grandpa Joe’s Country we follow elder Joe Beetis as he hunts moose in September, sharing his ideas of the land and animals.
DECEMBER 1 (3 short films)
Haa Shagóon
This video follows Austin Hammond and other Tlingit Elders in documenting a day of Tlingit ceremony along the Chilkoot River in 1980. The tape offers excellent footage of Tlingit prayer, oratory, riddles, singing and dancing in the context of actual ceremonial performance. It culminates in the peace ritual, performed both as a cultural event and as an appeal for justice in the struggle of the Tlingit people against the exploitation of their tribal lands and water.
Surviving Sounds of Haida
A few of the remaining Haida elders from Kasaan, Alaska o#er some of the surviving sounds of their endangered language. Each speaker in the "lm comes from Kasaan, Alaska, the northernmost of the remaining Haida villages--about 30 miles north and west of Ketchikan, Alaska. Only a few dozen Haida speakers remain worldwide. The Most fluent of our elders are over 75 years old.
Carved from the Heart
After Stan Marsden lost his son to a cocaine overdose, he was at frist incapacitated by grief, but a year later Marsden decided to create a totem pole in his son’s memory. Before he was done, the pole had become a communal project, with the entire town of Craig taking part. Carved from the Heart intertwines the process of carving and erecting the Healing Heart totem pole with the participants’ stories of personal loss, grief, substance abuse, suicide and violence.
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