Without Arrows

 

The film captures Fiddler's journey as he navigates between two worlds.

Native Identity, Lakota Family Ties Drive PBS Documentary 'Without Arrows' 

Without Arrows will air on PBS stations nationwide at 10 p.m. on January 13 and will stream on the PBS app and website through April 2025.  The film received support from Vision Maker Media and ITVS's Open Call initiative.

Without Arrows | Directors: Jonathan Olshefski; Elizabeth Day (Ojibwe) | Running Time: 1h 25m | Genre: Documentary

READ: https://nativenewsonline.net/arts-entertainment/cultural-preservation-lakota-family-ties-drive-pbs-documentary-without-arrows

Little Bird

 

Canadian Drama on the Lasting Effects of the Sixties Scoop Comes to PBS

• Yahoo News

(courtesy photo)

By Native News Online Staff

September 05, 2023

American public broadcaster PBS has announced the premiere of Canadian drama Little Bird, which follows the life of a First Nation woman who was forcefully removed from her family as a child during Canada’s Sixties Scoop.

The six-part, one-hour limited series, created by Canadian First Nations filmmaker Jennifer Podemski and playwright Hannah Moscovitch, stars Darla Contois and Lisa Edelstein and follows the life of Bezhig Little Bird, a victim of the Sixties Scoop in Saskatchewan during which indigenous children were taken from their families and adopted by white families.

Removed from her home in Long Pine Reservation, Bezhig Little Bird is adopted into a Montreal Jewish family at age five.  Now in her 20s, Bezhig longs for the family she lost and is willing to sacrifice everything to find them.  Her search lands her in the Canadian Prairies.  As she begins to track down her siblings, she unravels the mystery behind her adoption and discovers that her apprehension is connected to a racist government policy.

“It is a powerful narrative that not only engages and pulls on your heartstrings but also educates on a profoundly disturbing time in North American history that is rarely portrayed,” Germaine Sweet, Managing Director, Content Acquisitions at PBS Distribution, said in a press release.. “In addition to the creative brilliance of Jennifer Podemski and Hannah Moscovitch, this series was delivered by a wealth of Indigenous talent both in front of and behind the camera.”

The character-driven drama features Indigenous actors, including Ellyn Jade, Osawa Muskwaa, and Joshua Odjick. Rounding out the cast is award-winning actress Lisa Edelstein, playing Esther’s adoptive mother, Golda Rosenblum.

PBS will also broadcast Coming Home, which is a 90-minute companion documentary directed by Erica Daniels, which explores the connections between the movement for Indigenous narrative sovereignty and the impact of the child welfare system.

Little Bird and Coming Home will be available for streaming on October 12, 9:00 E.T., on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app, and on Apple T.V., Android T.V., Amazon Fire T.V., Samsung Smart T.V., Chromecast, and VIZIO.

 

Daughter of a Lost Bird

 READ THIS AMAZING REVIEW

America ReFramed

Daughter of a Lost Bird | Trailer | Season 10 Episode 4

 

Here are some of the other resources I suggest to learn more about Native American adoption in the U.S.: 

• The documentary Blood Memory, featuring my friend and amazing advocate, Sandy Whitehawk. Sandy is the founder of First Nations Repatriation Institute and created Welcoming Home ceremonies for adoptees and former fosterees (and generously included non-Native adoptees)
• Bitterroot: A Salish Memoir of Transracial Adoption by Susan Devan Harness
• The work of Dr. Raven Sinclair (her work is from a Canadian context which had a similar history as the U.S.)
• The National Indian Child Welfare Association website. They have an online Indian Child Welfare Training available here.
• The Relational Worldview training series (I was part of developing this training) featuring Terry Cross, available at the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare.
• Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz’s excellent book, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States.
• American Indian Adoptees blog
• Information about the Indian Adoption Project by the UpStander Project

After an early forced adoption, an Indigenous man rediscovers his identity #60sScoop

Eric Wardell, an Indigenous man from Canada’s Northwest Territories, was taken from his parents at just three weeks old, in what is known in Canada as the “sixties scoop.” In this first-person story, Wardell explores his identity — what it means to discover who you are, and how your past can shape your future. This story is part of the ‘Turning Points’ series: stories told by Indigenous people from Yellowknife, Canada in partnership with the Global Reporting Centre.  Transcript Audio

WATCH 

Turning Points

Eight short films about alcohol use, addiction, and healing in Yellowknife, directed by the storytellers themselves. WATCH

 

The Risk of Extinction due to #Covid-19

Native communities in the U.S. have suffered disproportionately from COVID-19, with higher rates of infection and death. The Navajo Nation has implemented a series of strict lockdown measures in an effort to protect its population, but health care facilities have still been overwhelmed. In fact, tribes across the country see the pandemic as representing an existential threat. Stephanie Sy reports.

Back in New Mexico, there are significant clusters of cases in the state's Pueblos. By one estimate, 11 percent of the Zia Reservation of only 646 members were infected. At that rate, leaders are concerned about the risk of extinction.

WATCH: Native communities have been hit hard by COVID-19 -- and fear for their survival

For more information on reports, helpful prevention tips, and more resources, please visit the Navajo Department of Health’s COVID-19 website at http://www.ndoh.navajo-nsn.gov/COVID-19.
To contact the Navajo Health Command Operations Center, please call (928) 871-7014.
For the latest news from the Office of the President and Vice President, please visit http://www.opvp.navajo-nsn.gov/ or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

TRIBAL JUSTICE DOCUMENTARY: reexamine the current definition of justice in America

New PBS Documentary on Native American Judges Focuses on Rehabilitative Justice

TV News Desk 

"We are village people. We have village values. And those values compel us to take care of each other, our families and our country," says Abby Abinanti, chief judge of the Yurok Tribal Court and the first Native American woman admitted to the State Bar of California. Tribal Justice spotlights tribal courts that incorporate indigenous customs and beliefs into their justice systems. The film follows Abby Abinanti and Claudette White, chief judges in two of the more than 300 tribal courts across the country, as they navigate cross-jurisdictional issues in their courts and communities.

Tribal Justice has its national broadcast premiere on the PBS documentary series POV (Point of View) on Monday, August 21, 2017. POV is American television's longest-running independent documentary series, now in its 30th season.  

TRAILER: http://www.pbs.org/pov/tribaljustice/

White is the chief judge of the Quechan Tribal Court in the Southern California desert. She says the affiliated tribe has been "vastly diminished," but never removed from its homeland. "We have a lot of social ills in our community based on our location and the limitation to services," she says. "In my capacity as chief judge, what I'm fighting for is our people, our independence, our sovereignty, our existence."

White sees Abinanti as a mentor, and both women are focused on restoring their communities rather than punishing offenders. The Yurok and Quechan tribes are the two largest in California. Each faces its own unique issues, but Abinanti and White share the goal of increasing safety and decreasing incarceration in an effort to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. Both judges are passionate about preserving their cultures and creating new pathways to justice for families dealing with historical trauma and intergenerational addiction.

"You guys could be leaders in our community or you could help destroy our community," White tells two teenage boys in her court.

Studies show that rural areas and American Indian reservations are plagued by the manufacturing, trafficking and use of crystal methamphetamine. Reservations are targeted by non-Native drug cartels. Native Americans have the highest meth usage of any ethnic group in the nation, resulting in extremely high crime and incarceration rates. Abinanti remarks, "The state has a lot of responsibility for all the people. I have responsibility to one set of people-6,000 Yuroks and their families. And that's what I'm responsible for: for that and for this land."

Viewers first meet Taos Proctor, a large and gregarious young man, in Abinanti's tribal court in 2013. While out on parole from San Quentin State Prison, Proctor was arrested with methamphetamine on his person; he is facing a third-strike conviction and 25 years to life in prison. Over two years, the film follows Abinanti and her staff as they take on Proctor's case and help him to complete court programs and rebuild his life.

A thousand miles to the south, White invokes the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 to reunite an autistic and epileptic 9-year-old boy with his family. She also takes on a more personal case when she becomes the legal guardian to her troubled teenage nephew, Isaac Palone. Palone has recently left a group home and faces two felony charges for breaking into cars; his case is in state court rather than tribal court, and he is at risk of beginning a life shuttling in and out of prison.

Tribal Justice contradicts the entrenched mainstream narrative that depicts Native Americans as locked in hopeless circumstances as their tribes vanish. Abinanti and White's struggles and triumphs tell a different story, one of strong female leaders working alongside their people to affirm tribal sovereignty and break free of the systems of poverty and inequality confronting Native Americans today.

Director Anne Makepeace says that she was immediately moved by the two judges upon meeting them in 2013 and felt that audiences needed to know about their work. "I realized the film would educate a broad audience about something few Americans know about-tribal courts-and that it could have a tremendous positive impact on our criminal justice system."

"Tribal Justice challenges viewers to reexamine the current definition of justice in America," says POV executive producer Justine Nagan. "Through the often personal experiences of two powerful women striving to elevate their people through the tribal court process, Anne Makepeace gives us the opportunity to watch a rarely seen justice system effectively at work."

SOURCE

Lost Sparrow documentary, movie review update

I think of this important documentary LOST SPARROW all the time and wanted to share the links with you again. The earlier review I wrote is on this blog here and I've included it in the new book TWO WORLDS: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects.

Four Native American children adopted by the Billing family

On November 16, 2010, the documentary “Lost Sparrow” premiered on PBS Independent Lens. Based on a true incident in 1978, two Crow Indian brothers (both adoptees) ran away from home and were found dead on railroad tracks the next day.

Chris Billing’s film takes a closer look at what killed these two boys and what truth shattered his entire family.

The filmmaker is one of four biological children. His parents adopted six, with four of them from the Crow tribe. Billing was 16 when the boys died. The family buries them in New York and moves on with their lives. His parents eventually divorce.

The filmmaker narrates how his little brothers Bobby (13) and Tyler (11) were trying to help their sister Lana (also Crow). Lana told her brothers she was being sexually molested by their adoptive father.