2024 Sundance Indigenous Shorts Tour
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Thu Nov 7
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Fri Nov 8
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Thu Nov 14
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Fri Nov 22
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Sat Nov 30
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Sun Dec 1
The 2024 Sundance Institute Indigenous Film Tour is an 83-minute theatrical program featuring eight short films by Indigenous filmmakers: four from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival program, three from the 2023 festival and one from the 2005 festival. The Sundance Film Festival launched the program in 2021 as a virtual presentation in conjunction with museums, Native cultural centers, and arthouse cinemas. The 2024 tour is the first to be held in person.
The selected films reflect a variety of Native stories and showcases inventive, original storytelling from Indigenous artists previously supported by the festival. Sundance Institute has a long history of supporting and launching talented Indigenous directors including Erica Tremblay, Taika Waititi, Blackhorse Lowe, Sterlin Harjo, Sky Hopinka, Caroline Monnet, Fox Maxy, and Shaandiin Tome.
Adam Piron, Director of the Sundance Institute Indigenous Program, said, “These eight shorts include narrative and documentary projects, some from Native storytellers outside the U.S., and they’ve all resonated with Sundance Film Festival audiences in the past—it’s our pleasure to take such a diverse cross-section of Indigenous cinema on tour.”
Program
Bay of Herons
U.S.A. (Director: Jared James Lank)
Calling on the strength of his ancestors, a young Mi’kmaq man reflects on the pain of bearing witness to the destruction of his homelands.
Winding Path
U.S.A. (Directors: Alexandra Lazarowich, Ross Kauffman, Producer: Robin Honan)
Eastern Shoshone MD-PhD student Jenna Murray spent summers on the Wind River Indian Reservation helping her grandfather anyway she could. When he suddenly dies, she must find a way to heal before realizing her dream of a life in medicine.
Headdress
U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Taietsarón:sere ‘Tai’ Leclaire, Producer: David Spadora)
When an act of casual racism confronts a Queer Native man, he retreats into his mind to find the perfect clap back from various versions of his own identity.
Ekbeh
U.S.A. (Director: Mariah Eli Hernandez-Fitch)
In this short documentary, the director uses learning how to make gumbo from her grandparents as a way to honor and preserve their Houma culture. “Ekbeh” means “to build” or “to cook.”
Baigal Nuur – Lake Baikal
Canada, Germany (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Alisi Telengut)
Alisi Telengut reimagines the formation of Siberia’s Lake Baikal. The film features the voice of a Buryat woman who can still recall some words in her endangered Mongolian dialect.
Hawaiki
New Zealand (Director and Screenwriter: Nova Paul, Producer: Tara Riddell)
The children of Okiwi School, on Aotea (Great Barrier Island), made a refuge they call Hawaiki, the ancestral homeland in Polynesian culture. By creating this space for their self-determination, says director Nova Paul, “what we’re seeing the kids do is actually what our ancestors left us.” She captures layers of meaning in this beautiful observational film.
Sunflower Siege Engine
U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Sky Hopinka)
Movements of resistance are collapsed and woven together, from reflections of one’s own body in the world today, to documentation of Alcatraz, the reclamation of Cahokia, and the repatriation of the ancestors.
Goodnight Irene
U.S.A. (Director: Sterlin Harjo)
Three Seminole patients share laughs and poignant truths as they wait for treatment at the local Indian hospital.