Documenting Indigenous Stories Through Film: An Alternative Lens

Two filmmakers share and discuss excerpts from their new documentaries that illuminate indigenous stories rarely seen on film. Bering: Balance and Resistance, by Lourdes Grobet—one of Mexico’s most renowned photographers—lyrically reflects on an Inuit community’s search for new values while struggling to reconcile the past. In Indian 101, filmmaker Julianna Brannum focuses on lessons taught by her great aunt LaDonna Harris, the Comanche activist who helped negotiate the return of sacred ground to the Taos Pueblo Indians. Far apart geographically, these two communities are irrevocably linked as they navigate their contemporary history.