Indigenous Cinema Research Articles

Warwick Thornton’s Emotional Landscapes: Indigenous Cinema and Cultural Autonomy in Australia

This article explores director Warwick Thornton’s activistic use of filmic emotions in the features Samson and Delilah (2009) and Sweet Country (2017). Thornton’s films portray coloniser-colonised relations at two moments in Australian history, and that affective history-telling is motivated toward a more deliberative case for a future of self-determined cultural autonomy. I analyse emotive resources that cross between both films, including periods of silence and landscape aesthetics that depict subjective experience of country. I also address the place of empathy in Thornton’s character studies as foundational to later political reasoning. Thornton’s films call attention to the positionality of different audience members, challenging the spectator to interrogate foundational emotional responses, conflicts between their emotional responses, and subsequent prompts to think through the politics of those experiences. These provocations are united into an explicitly argumentative appeal for Indigenous cultural autonomy.

Domínios do Cinema Indígena: a problemática do sujeito revisitada

ABSTRACT This study analyzes the place of indigenous peoples in documentary film, outlining the limits and possibilities that define their condition as subject or object of the documentary film. Based on cinema and anthropological studies, it identifies the extent to which the problem of the constitution of the subject in indigenous cinema allows us to consider a similar research question in the field of humanities. Between the historical and cosmological worlds, the audiovisual field and ante-field, permanent colonialism and counter-coloniality, the domains of power in the indigenous documentary perspective are invariably marked by tensions, fissures and limits. Who, after all, is the Other as subject and/or object of the camera?

Domains of Indigenous Cinema: the problematic of the subject revisited

RESUMO O presente estudo analisa o lugar dos povos originários no filme documentário, delineando os limites e possibilidades que definem sua condição de sujeito ou de objeto da cena documental. A partir dos estudos de cinema e antropológicos, identifica-se em que medida a problemática da constituição do sujeito no cinema indígena permite pensar questão semelhante de pesquisa no campo das humanidades. Entre o mundo histórico e cosmológico, o campo e o antecampo audiovisual, o colonialismo permanente e a contracolonialidade, os domínios do poder na perspectiva documental indígena, invariavelmente, são marcados por tensões, fissuras e limites. Quem, afinal, é o Outro enquanto sujeito e/ou objeto da câmera?

Indigenous filmmaking practices: healing in times of climate crises

The psychological impacts of the climate crisis and its triggers can have long-lasting consequences for public mental health. Many indigenous communities have an in-depth understanding of these impacts, and some of their filmmakers have depicted them through their audiovisual work. By challenging colonial perspectives, these indigenous filmmakers offer invaluable insights into how communities might navigate into adaptation and recovery to cope with the challenges brought about by climate change. Unfortunately, audiovisual work has often been overlooked in climate-related disaster studies despite its significant contributions. Drawing on community-based feminism and the decolonial turn, I sought to explore the healing practices employed by communities in Upper Xingu, Brazil, through the practice of indigenous filmmaker Takumã Kuikuro. To achieve this, I drew on audiovisual analysis of Takumã Kuikuro’s documentaries and records (short videos) from the decolonial panorama. Additionally, I conducted semi-structured interviews with the filmmaker and three members of the People’s Palace Projects, who have worked closely with Takumã, culminating in a validation meeting. I highlight three key findings for this article: (i) healing through rituals as esthetic and ethical-sacred practices within the territory, (ii) bodies in collectivism, and (iii) cascading effects on healing audiences: weaving networks from reciprocities. In seeking a discussion of the findings, I contend that there is an inextricable bond between the community-based healing responses to the climate crisis shown by Takumã’s lenses and the Politics of the Bodies proposed by the Colombian philosopher Laura Quintana, allowing us to frame the decolonial understanding of healing as a political and collective action both within and with territories. Therefore, placing the indigenous cinema as a source of knowledge will enable us to bring community-based discussions that disaster risk reduction has neglected due to its embeddedness in epistemic injustice, from which at-risk communities have been predominantly seen as incapable of knowing their geographies. The rituals and collaborative practices grounded in reciprocity demonstrate forms of adaptation in which mental health becomes a collective responsibility woven into nature at its core.

Toward a Feminist Fourth Cinema: Waru (2017)

Abstract This essay offers an analysis of Waru, an omnibus film written and directed by a sisterhood of nine Māori women, which illuminates a philosophy of Māori women's filmmaking and indicates new possibilities for a global Indigenous cinema. In the two decades since Māori filmmaker Barry Barclay declared the existence of a “fourth cinema,” the cinema of Indigenous peoples, the number of dramatic feature films by Indigenous directors around the globe has grown significantly, with particular attention garnered by the success of Māori filmmaker Taika Waititi. Yet, while it would be tempting to declare that Barclay's onetime ideal of a flourishing Indigenous cinema “outside the national orthodoxy” has been achieved, Māori women continue to be marginalized in the film industry. As many critics have noted, Merata Mita's Mauri (1988) remained the only dramatic feature film to be written and directed by a Māori woman for almost thirty years. That finally changed in 2017 with Waru. Drawing from the growing body of scholarship on mana wahine, often referred to as Māori feminism, by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Aroha Yates-Smith, Naomi Simmonds, and Leonie Pihama, this essay argues that Waru's filmmakers recenter mana wahine to devise a new cinematic framework that is simultaneously Indigenous and feminist to enable Māori women to contribute not only to the fourth cinema envisioned by Barclay but also to a feminist fourth cinema grounded in values specific to Māori women.

Mothering and Care Work in Indigenous Cinema from Québec

AbstractThe recent media focus on unmarked graves at former residential schools throughout Canada has brought fresh discussion of the particular role played by these institutions in the physical and cultural genocide of First Nations peoples. Yet, beyond the residential schools, the shattering of intergenerational ties has been pursued with purpose through manifold attacks on women, mothers, and children, as well as through the suppression of broader communities of care. This article provides a condensed overview of the institutionalized violence targeting First Nations women and children, supporting the notion that, in this context, mothering and care work become intrinsic modes of resistance to genocide. The article goes on to examine cinematic representations that contribute to decolonizing Indigenous motherhood. While important recent work by “relève autochtone” filmmakers pays tribute to strong Indigenous mothers, this article first looks at the roots of this decolonial turn in First Nations’ maternal representation, returning to the corpus of Alanis Obomsawin. It then analyzes two relève autochtone films, Mohawk filmmaker Sonia Bonspille Boileau’s Le Dep (2015) and Chloé Leriche’s Avant les rues (2016), arguing that, while these films may at first seem in some ways complicit with settler stereotypes, they ultimately present a broader, empowering understanding of mothering and care in First Nations communities.RésuméL’attention récente portée par les médias sur les tombes anonymes trouvées sur les sites de plusieurs anciens pensionnats à travers le Canada a suscité des discussions sur le rôle particulier joué par ces institutions dans le génocide physique et culturel des Premières Nations. Pourtant, au-delà des pensionnats, la destruction des liens intergénérationnels a été délibérément poursuivie à travers de multiples formes d’attaques contre les femmes, les mères et les enfants, ainsi que par l’anéantissement des réseaux communautaires de soins. Cet article offre d’abord un aperçu condensé de la violence institutionnalisée ciblant les femmes et les enfants des Premières Nations, soutenant l’idée que, dans ce contexte, la maternité et le soin (care work) deviennent intrinsèquement des formes de résistance au génocide. L’article examine ensuite de manière critique les représentations cinématographiques qui contribuent à décoloniser la maternité autochtone. Alors que d’importants ouvrages par des cinéastes de la “relève autochtone” rendent hommage aux mères autochtones fortes, cet article s’intéresse d’abord aux racines de ce tournant décolonial dans la représentation maternelle des Premières Nations, en revenant au corpus d’Alanis Obomsawin. Il analyse ensuite deux films de la relève autochtone, Le Dep (2015) réalisé par la cinéaste mohawk Sonia Bonspille Boileau et Avant les rues (2016) de Chloé Leriche, en soutenant que, si ces films peuvent sembler récourir à des stéréotypes colonisateurs, ils présentent en fin de compte une vue plus large et puissante du travail maternel (mothering) et du soin (care) dans les communautés des Premières Nations.

Screening Eco-trauma in the Context of Post-socialism: “The Great Flood” and Local Identity Crisis in Chinese and Vietnamese Independent Films (the Cases of Taking Father Home and 2030)

As two of the few socialist countries in the Global South today that share a deep root of Confucianism and have had intense contact with capitalism in the last two decades, Vietnam and China have many cultural, ideological, and political similarities. Significantly, China and Vietnam have a similarly long tradition of water control and pride in managing the power of rivers and water, as evidenced in mythological, fairy tales, and historical books. The Yangtze and the Mekong are the two largest rivers that profoundly influence and impact their respective cultural, spiritual, economic, and social lives. Since the 1990s, with the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and industrial plants next to the Yangtze and the mangrove deforestation next to the Mekong, in the context of Post-socialism, these two river deltas have faced unprecedented severe environmental challenges. On the other hand, the images of the two rivers and two river deltas appearing in official state-funded and commercial films are isolated from the actual situations mentioned. By examining two typical independent movies from China and Vietnam about the Great Flood, Taking Father Home (2005, Ying Liang) and 2030 (2014, Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh), this essay highlights the eco-awareness of those affected, especially the sense of eco-trauma, related to the natural disasters in the Yangtze and Mekong deltas. This essay will in particular analyze how the globalization process in these two socialist countries causes multi-level harm in localities, both culturally and environmentally. Moreover, drawing from the concepts of indigenous cinema, we will highlight the aesthetic ability of independent films to question the limitations of commercial and state-sponsored movies, which always romanticize native natural landscapes on-screen and produce eco-ambiguity among the public.

Breaking the Celluloid Ceiling: Exploring the Unique Female Inuit Perspective in Before Tomorrow (Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu 2008)

While acknowledging the diverse designations and feminist perspectives associated with female directors in mainstream cinema, this paper explores the intricacies of female film directing in the context of mainstream cinema, which historically encountered significant challenges. Filmmaking faced notable difficulties before the 1980s, the exploration of female film directing becomes particularly complex, given the predominantly patriarchal nature of the film industry. The paper highlights Arnait Video Productions as a remarkable phenomenon, emphasizing its ability to convey a unique Indigenous female perspective through cinematic production, particularly in the film Before Tomorrow (2008), directed by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu. The study aims to analyze and elucidate the nuances of this distinct female Indigenous collective filmmaking style, exploring its broader implications for the revitalization of Indigenous culture as portrayed in Before Tomorrow. The present article navigates the multifaceted discourse surrounding female film directors while focusing on the specific context of Indigenous cinema and the significance of Arnait Video Productions in preserving and mediating Indigenous culture through the medium of cinema.

The jumara festival of Panamá

Based on an ethnography of the First Jumara International In-digenous Film Festival, which took place in an Emberá com-munity in Panama, the aim of this article is to delve deeper into the connection between the processes of ethnicity derived from Indigenous cinema and the processes of ethnicity deri-ved from the meaning given to that cinema at specific even-ts. At Jumara, Indigenous cinema was the reason for affirming Emberá culture and for championing, in a markedly festive and performative way, the group’s main demands in a celebration in which the body and its ornamentation took on a special role. It is argued that the ethnographic focus on festivals organized in Indigenous communities makes it possible to fully analyze the committed and activist dimension of Indigenous cinema.

“Filming Back” in siberian indigenous cinema

This paper examines the Siberian films by Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmuskallio. It focuses on filmic means em-ployed in order to “film back” to outsider cinema. Applying film analysis as a method, it demonstrates how film form can be as political as content when used to give voice to Siberia indige-nous peoples and re-view earlier Soviet discourse of equality, integration and progress. It highlights two aesthetic strategies used by the filmmakers to “film back:” the re-appropriation of archival footage to rework the past and recredit indigenous in-dividuals; and the creation of a plural pseudo-autobiographical voice to break the Soviet monologue and embody the shared indigenous experience. Finally, it argues that looking at formal aspects helps to rethink our understanding of such notions as “talking back” and “shooting back,” often used indifferently, with the addition of the “filming back” concept, reserved to filmic issues.

Indigenous Cinema, the camera ashore, and House Made of Dawn

ABSTRACT This article explores the complexities of film authorship in relation to the 1972 film House Made of Dawn. Produced and directed by Richardson Morse, a non-Indigenous director, House Made of Dawn occupies a somewhat awkward position within scholarship on Indigenous Cinema. Using the film as a case study, this paper draws on Barry Barclay’s idea of Indigenous Cinema as the camera in the hands of Indigenous filmmakers to unpack notions of film authorship. The paper suggests that the answer to the question of who holds the camera is not always a simple one by drawing on interviews between Joanna Hearne and key figures in the filmmaking team of House Made of Dawn. In particular, this article argues that determinations of authorship must also consider the film’s source text by Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday as well as the input of lead actor Larry Littlebird. Failure to consider these forms of authorship serves to undermine Indigenous approaches to storytelling in favour of a Western model and subsequently undermines the input of the Indigenous authors of the film.

Indigenous Cinema and Media in the Americas: Storytelling, Communities, and Sovereignties

Indigenous Cinema and Media in the Americas: Storytelling, Communities, and Sovereignties

Indigenous Cinema in Expansion: Challenges and Promises of an Intercultural Relationship

Les auteures dressent le portrait tant des défis actuels que des possibilités qui naissent des relations interculturelles se tissant entre commissaires et cinéastes autochtones et non-autochtones dans le cadre du plus grand festival du film autochtone du Brésil, Cine Kurumin. Ce festival annuel, fondé en 2011, se déroule dans des villages ruraux autochtones, de même que dans des métropoles brésiliennes, attirant ainsi des auditoires variés. Le festival est ouvert aux cinéastes autochtones et non-autochtones qui produisent du matériel audiovisuel portant sur des sujets autochtones de partout dans le monde. Divers processus créatifs y sont encouragés grâce à l’organisation d’ateliers de scénarisation, et des partenariats établis avec des chaînes de télévision permettent une plus large diffusion des films sélectionnés. Alors que les productions audiovisuelles autochtones se développent, leurs contenus se diversifient ; elles englobent en effet de plus en plus de thèmes et de styles, de formats et de perspectives variées. En s’appuyant sur un cadre théorique postcolonial et décolonial, les auteures proposent de nouvelles perspectives sur un cinéma en pleine expansion ; les réalisateurs autochtones et leurs films circulent de plus en plus au sein de festivals non thématiques, reçoivent des prix et font rayonner leurs propres voix et points de vue auprès de publics variés, ce qui crée de nombreuses possibilités d’interactions et de dialogues interculturels. En outre, la mise sur pied de Cine Kurumin témoigne du pouvoir des productions audiovisuelles autochtones de générer des relations interculturelles entre cinéastes, commissaires et public.

Auto-histoires et représentations communautaires dans le cinéma des femmes autochtones

In the last decade or so, cinema has revealed itself to be an ideal medium for the transfer and/or remediation of the spoken word as well as stories coming from oral tradition and Indigenous culture. Indeed, cinema is a place of expression which favours cyclical creativity and contributes to the decolonization of stereotyped images propagated by external voices that do not understand the subtleties of languages (real and symbolic) that are anchored in indigenous peoples’ cultural memory. By exploring indigenous cinema as practised by women of diverse nations, this piece demonstrates how cinema can induce the compression and dilation of time, to bring to the audience the fluidity of a story that has been reconfigured according to a new time and carried by spoken words that have chosen to either emancipate themselves from the image or to materialize themselves in it. Furthermore, this article illustrates how a new generation of Indigenous women use cinema to retrace and/or rewrite their personal narrative with the help of autobiographical or collective stories that travel back in time to fill in the blanks left by a fragile memory and to express their will to make peace with a difficult colonial past. Finally, the writings of Lee Maracle ( I Am Woman, 1988) and Natasha Kanapé Fontaine ( Manifeste Assi, 2014) are being brought forth to show how films such as Suckerfish (Lisa Jackson, 2004) Bithos (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, 2015) and Four Faces of the Moon (Amanda Strong, 2016) contribute to the individual and community healing of Indigenous peoples of Canada, through an aesthetic of reconciliation. The exploration of these works, therefore allows us to shed light on and better understand the roles/internal mechanisms of visual autobiographies in the larger context of reconciliation with individual and collective stories/memories.

Reclaiming Uncanny Spaces: Australian Landscapes from the New Wave to the New Indigenous Cinema

This video essay contrasts the representation of the Australian landscape in the early films of Peter Weir with those of three contemporary Indigenous filmmakers. It uses Douglas Keesey’s psychoanalytic reading of Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and The Last Wave (1977) to frame the theme of dispossession in Australian New Wave cinema before considering the response of contemporary Indigenous filmmakers to the same theme.

An Alternative History of the Arctic: The Origins of Ethnographic Filmmaking, the Fifth Thule Expedition, and Indigenous Cinema

The Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–24) generated extensive international attention through publications such as Knud Rasmussen’s best seller, Across Arctic America (1927). It also appropriated thousands of Indigenous artifacts, shipped mostly to the National Museum of Denmark. The collection includes a little‐known film, Med Hundeslæde gennem Alaska (With Dog Sled Through Alaska, 1927) shot in 1923–24 by Danish filmmaker and photographer Leo Hansen, in close collaboration with Rasmussen. The extant film materials reflect Rasmussen’s status as an embedded ethnographic explorer because of his Greenlandic heritage and Indigenous language capacity. Through archival research, this article examines early Arctic cinema and early twentieth‐century representation of Inuit cultures.

Beyond the Burden of History in Indigenous Australian Cinema

How Indigenous Australian history has been portrayed and who has been empowered to define it is a complex and controversial subject in contemporary Australian society. This article critically examines these issues through two Indigenous Australian films: Nice Coloured Girls (1987) and The Sapphires (2012). These two films contrast in style, theme and purpose, but each reclaims Indigenous history on its own terms. Nice Coloured Girls offers a highly fragmented and experimental history reclaiming Indigenous female agency through the appropriation of the colonial archive. The Sapphires eschews such experimentation. It instead celebrates Indigenous socio-political links with African American culture, ‘Black is beautiful’, and the American Civil Rights movements of the 1960s. Crucially, both these films challenge notions of a singular and tragic history for Indigenous Australia. Placing the films within their wider cultural contexts, this article highlights the diversity of Indigenous Australian cinematic expression and the varied ways in which history can be reclaimed on film. However, it also shows that the content, form and accessibility of both works are inextricably linked to the industry concerns and material circumstances of the day. This is a crucial and overlooked aspect of film analysis and has implications for a more nuanced appreciation of Indigenous film as a cultural archive.

“Será que vocês estão preparados para ver isto?”

Recensão da Mostra Ameríndia – Percursos do Cinema Indígena no Brasil (13-17 Março 2019, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa), um "encontro de visões de vários lados", tomando as palavras de Ailton Krenak.

Voice of the Arhuacos: Transcending the Borders of “Indigenous” Filmmaking in Colombia

This article explores mainstream ambitions of indigenous filmmakers from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Using the example of Zhigoneshi, the Arhuaco filmmaking collective, I analyse the trend to transcend the boundaries of so-called “indigenous cinema.” The filmmaking in the region emerged as a response to political violence, and it developed into a tool of cultural self-discovery and opposition to past misinterpretations of the Arhuacos by Western filmmakers. Today, the Arhuacos reach for audiovisual media to communicate, create an archive of their history and culture, and to reflect on the implications of adopting a Western tool to protect the traditional values. The fruit of their work widely circulates at film festivals, academic events, and special presentations, reaching audiences all over the world. As such, the universal qualities of audiovisual media promise hope of successful intercultural communication.

Transcending Borders and Crossing the Sea : Indigenous Cinema in the Pacific Islands

Cet article s’intéresse aux films réalisés par trois artistes des îles du Pacifique dont les travaux transcendent les frontières et mettent en question l’hégémonie des états-nations afin de promouvoir les relations transnationales entre les peuples et les cultures autochtones. The Land Has Eyes (Vilsoni Hereniko, 2004), Little Girl’s War Cry (Erin Lau, 2013) and Out of State (Ciara Lacy, 2017) expriment une forme de résistance anti-coloniale et cherchent à déconstruire les conceptions unitaires de l’identité nationale, du cinéma national et de l’état-nation. Les trois réalisateurs s’inspirent des modes de pensée et de la culture indigènes ainsi que de l’esthétique du cinéma indigène afin de faire entendre une voix autochtone authentique, le but étant de montrer la nécessité de dépasser les frontières. Le cinéma indigène souligne les luttes communes menées par les peuples autochtones à travers le monde pour préserver leurs cultures et conserver, voire regagner, leur souveraineté.