LibGuides: Native American Indian & Alaskan Heritage Month: Documentaries

Documentaries

Browse various film titles on Native Americans from several documentary film sources.

Films on Demand - Native American
3,500+ titles on Native American.
Kanopy - Native American Heritage Month
PBS Video Collection - Native American
PBS Frontline - Native American
Check out over 9,400+ results on Native Americans.

Indigenous Values & Aesthetics

The videos in this playlist above contain compelling subject matter informed by indigenous values and aesthetics. These values and aesthetics inform the stories that the films tell, and in doing so, they illuminate indigenous ways of knowing that enrich an understanding and appreciation of culture and society. There is often hidden meanings embedded in indigenous languages and cultures that are inaccessible to outsiders but that can be discovered and understood in these “cultural treasures”, films made by Pacific Islanders about themselves and their cultures. By Jenna Makowski, Alexander Street Press

Documentaries II

500 Nations
500 Nations is an eight-part American documentary television series that was aired on CBS in 1995 about the Native Americans of North and Central America. It documents events from the Pre-Columbian era to the end of the 19th century. Much of the information comes from text, eyewitnesses, pictorials, and computer graphics. The series was hosted by Kevin Costner, narrated by Gregory Harrison, and directed by Jack Leustig. It included the voice talents of Eric Schweig, Gordon Tootoosis, Wes Studi, Cástulo Guerra, Tony Plana, Edward James Olmos, Patrick Stewart, Gary Farmer, Tom Jackson, Tantoo Cardinal, Dante Basco, Sheldon Peters Wolfchild, Tim Bottoms, Michael Horse, Graham Greene, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Amy Madigan, Frank Salsedo, and Kurtwood Smith. The series was written by Jack Leustig, Roberta Grossman, Lee Miller (head of research), and W. T. Morgan, with John M. D. Pohl.
The American Buffalo
The American Buffalo, a new two-part, four-hour series, takes viewers on a journey through more than 10,000 years of North American history and across some of the continent’s most iconic landscapes, tracing the animal’s evolution, its significance to the Indigenous people and landscape of the Great Plains, its near extinction, and the efforts to bring the magnificent mammals back from the brink.
Dawnland - A Documentary of Cultural Survival and Stolen Children (54mins)
NATIONAL BROADCAST: November 2018 on Independent Lens on PBS. Local listings here: www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/dawnland/ OFFICIAL WEBSITE: dawnland.org SCREENINGS: dawnland.org/screenings FACEBOOK: facebook.com/dawnlandmovie INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/dawnlandmovie TWITTER: twitter.com/DawnlandMovie SYNOPSIS: For decades, child welfare authorities have been removing Native American children from their homes to save them from being Indian. In Maine, the first official “truth and reconciliation commission” in the United States begins a historic investigation. DAWNLAND goes behind-the-scenes as this historic body grapples with difficult truths, redefines reconciliation, and charts a new course for state and tribal relations.
DEAR GEORGINA
At age two Georgina Sappier-Richardson was removed from her home and Passamaquoddy community in down east Maine by child protection services. She would never see her parents again. Dear Georgina follows this Passamaquoddy elder from Motahkomikuk as she tries to better understand herself and her cultural heritage. Now a grandmother Georgina attempts to re-integrate herself into the community she barely knew. Dear Georgina is a follow-up to the Emmy® award-winner Dawnland. First Light is included on the Dear Georgina DVD.