2025 Sundance Institute Indigenous Film Tour

The 2025 Sundance Institute Indigenous Film Tour returns this summer with a 98-minute theatrical program featuring seven short films from Indigenous filmmakers: six from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival program and one short film from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. 

Sundance started this film tour in 2021 as a virtual presentation in conjunction with museums, Native cultural centers, and arthouse cinemas. This year it continues as an in-person program. The selection curated by the Institute’s Indigenous Program team reflects a multiplicity of Indigenous perspectives, showcasing inventive storytelling from Indigenous artists who have previously screened their projects at the Festival. One of the shorts in this year’s selection (Tiger) won the Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. 

Sundance Institute has a proud history of supporting talented Indigenous directors including Erica Tremblay, Taika Waititi, Blackhorse Lowe, Sterlin Harjo, Sky Hopinka, Caroline Monnet, Fox Maxy, and Shaandiin Tome. Support for screenings is provided by the Mellon Foundation. 

Program (in alpha order) 

En Memoria
U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Roberto Fatal, Screenwriter and Producer: Ali Meyers-Ohki, Producer: Leah Dubuc). Cast: Leslie Martinez, Frédérique LaTour, Jennifer Rader. Fiction. 

In a dystopian future, a mother struggles to finish making her daughter’s quinceañera dress.  

Field Recording  
U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Quinne Larsen, Producer: Louie Zong). Cast: Quinne Larsen. Louie Zong. Animated. 

A meandering joke about three dreams.  

Inkwo for When the Starving Return
Canada (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Amanda Strong, Screenwriters: Bracken Hanuse Corlett, Richard Van Camp, Producers: Maral Mohammadian, Nina Werewka). Cast: Paulina Alexis, Tantoo Cardinal, Art Napoleon. Animated.  

Dove, a gender-shifting warrior, uses their Indigenous medicine, Inkwo, to protect their community from an unearthed swarm of terrifying creatures.  

Lea Tupu’anga
Mother Tongue / New Zealand (Director: Vea Mafile’o, Screenwriter: Luciane Buchanan, Producers: Alex Lovell, Eldon Booth) Cast: Luciane Buchanan, Albert Rounds, Mikey Falesiu, Michael Koloi, Elizabeth Thomson. Fiction.  

A young speech therapist disconnected from her Tongan heritage lies about her Tongan language skills to get a job. Out of her depth, she must find a way to communicate or risk her patient’s life.  

Stranger, Brother.
Australia (Director and Screenwriter: Annelise Hickey, Producers: Tessa Mansfield-Hung, Josie Baynes) Cast: Tiaki Teremoana, Samson Uili, Charly Thorn, Patrick Livesey. Fiction.  

When Adam, a self-absorbed and lonely millennial, wakes one morning to find his estranged half-brother on his doorstep, he must face the family he’s been running away from.  

Tiger
U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Loren Waters, Producer: Dana Tiger) Nonfiction.  

A portrait of award-winning, internationally acclaimed Indigenous artist and elder Dana Tiger, her family, and the resurgence of the iconic Tiger T-shirt company.  

Vox Humana  
Philippines, U.S.A., Singapore (Director and Screenwriter: Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan, Producers: Hannah Schierbeek, Alemberg Ang) Cast: Sasa Cabalquinto, Ymeiliza Tabora, Bruce Venida. Fiction.  

An eccentric biologist interrogates a wild man who was found in the forest after an earthquake hit a small mountain town.