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Your Call

Today on Your Call: How are Native American filmmakers changing history?

On today's Your Call we’ll talk to directors from the American Indian Film Festival, which comes to San Francisco this weekend. Recent blockbuster films like Disney’s Lone Ranger show a distorted view of native characters.  But since 1975, the American Indian Film Institute has been encouraging Native Americans to tell their own stories on screen.  How have films by or about native americans affected your understanding of native history and culture?  Join the conversation on the next Your Call with Rose Aguilar and You. 

Guests:
Shirley Cheechoo, director of “Moose River Crossing”

Charlie Soap, director of “The Cherokee Word for Water”

Michael Spears, actor in “The Activist”

Resources:
American Indian Film Festival

The Cherokee Word for Water

Saturday, November 2, 2013 – 7:00 pm Evening Screening

Delancey Street Theatre 

“Set in the early 1980’s, The Cherokee Word For Water begins in the homes of a rural Oklahoma community where many houses lack running water and others are little more than shacks. After centuries of being dehumanized and dispossessed of their land and identity, the people no longer feel they have power or control over their lives or future. Based on the true story of the Bell Waterline Project, the movie is about a community coming together to improve its life condition. Led by Wilma Mankiller, who went on to become the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation, and full blood Cherokee organizer Charlie Soap, they join forces and build nearly twenty miles of waterline using a community of volunteers. In the process, they inspire the community to trust each other, and reawaken universal indigenous values of reciprocity and interconnectedness. The successful completion of the waterline sparked a movement of similar self-help projects across the Cherokee nation and in Indian country that continues to this day.” 

The Activist

Sunday, November 3, 2013 – 7:00 pm Evening Screening

Delancey Street Theatre

“In 1973, during the insurrection, Marin and Bud, two Native American activists, are arrested and thrown in jail. Anna, Marvin’s wife, died in an accident several months before. Marvin is devastated and Bud consoles his friend during this hard time. In jail, they must face two officers monitoring their every move and join forces with a young lawyer assigned to their case. What secret was Anna hiding before she died? During the seventies, the world keeps spinning and tension arises in this simple jail in the middle of nowhere.” 

Moose River Crossing

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 – 7:00 pm Evening Screening

Delancey Street Theatre

“Moose River Crossing is a feature film based on the play that examines the premise and asks the question “Does time heal all wounds?”. Six childhood friends and former residential school students meet at the train station to travel to their school reunion. it’s been eighteen years. Excited yet apprehensive they greet each other with the warmth of friends past and do the preverbal “catch up.”

As the minutes move to hours and derailed train delays their travel, these six adults flash to the past; the love, the lies, the pain of childhood lost and finally resolution. Their reunion insulated in the stark lobby of the train station, proves to be the door that opens a path to healing.

Moose River Crossing is a reunion not simply of old friends but a resolution, a crossing over and a letting go.”