For more than 120 years, Mohawk ironworkers have raised America’s modern cityscapes. They are called 'sky walkers' because they walk fearlessly atop steel beams just a foot wide, high above the city. In this nuanced portrait of modern Native Americans' double lives, Jerry McDonald Thundercloud and his colleague Sky shuttle between the hard-drinking Brooklyn lodging houses they call home during the week and their rural reservation, a grueling drive six hours north, where a family weekend awaits. While the men are away working, their wives often struggle to keep their children away from the illegal temptations of an economically deprived area.

The US detonated 67 nuclear weapons over the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War, the consequences of which still reverberate down four generations to today. "NUKED," is a timely new feature documentary focussing on the human victims of the nuclear arms race, tracing the displaced Bikinian's ongoing struggle for justice and survival even as climate change poses a new existential threat. Using carefully restored archival footage to resurrect contemporaneous islanders’ voices and juxtaposing these with the full, awesome fury of the nuclear detonations, NUKED starkly contrasts the official record with the lived experience of the Bikinians themselves, serving as an important counterpoint to this summer’s Oppenheimer.
2023

This short documentary tells the story of the life and legacy of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, an Omaha woman who became the first Native American physician.
2022

For 50 years, controversial ethnographer John Peabody Harrington crisscrossed the United States, frantically searching and documenting dying Native American languages. Harrington amassed over a million pages of notes on over 150 different tribal languages. Some of these languages were considered dead until his notes were discovered. Today tribes are accessing the notes, reviving their once dormant languages, and bringing together a new generation of language learners in the hope of saving Native languages.
2021

For millennia, Native Americans successfully stewarded and shaped their landscapes, but centuries of colonization have disrupted their ability to maintain their traditional land management practices. From deserts, coastlines, forests, mountains, and prairies, Native communities across the US are restoring their ancient relationships with the land. As the climate crisis escalates these time-tested practices of North America's original inhabitants are becoming increasingly essential in a rapidly changing world.
2021

An experimental look at the origin of the death myth of the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, following two people as they navigate their own relationships to the spirit world and a place in between life and death.
2020

Sean and Adrian, a Two-Spirit couple, are determined to rewrite the rules of Native American culture through their participation in the “Sweetheart Dance.” This celebratory contest is held at powwows across the country, primarily for heterosexual couples … until now.
2019

In this evocative meditation, a disturbing link is made between the resource extraction industries’ exploitation of the land and violence inflicted on Indigenous women and girls. Or, as one young woman testifies, “Just as the land is being used, these women are being used.”
2018

A look into the 19th century American-Indian Wars, Manifest Destiny, and the conflicts between Apache tribes and the African-American Buffalo soldier regiments.
2017

African American soldiers throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries faced discrimination and segregation, yet many still chose to fight for their country.
2017
Lakota people from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota describe the ongoing struggle of their people.
2015
In 1867, when the United States purchased the Alaska territory, the promise of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights didn't apply to Alaska Natives. Their struggle to win justice is one of the great, untold chapters of the American civil rights movement, culminating at the violent peak of World War II with the passage of one of the nation's first equal rights laws.
2009

A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances, and politics.
2005

While most teens spend their days in a self-absorbed haze, Simon Jackson was out in the world connecting with anyone who could help him save the spirit bear. For this, Simon became one of Time's Heroes of the Planet. It's a remarkable accomplishment for one so young, and an inspiring story for lovers of wilderness of all ages. But his devotion to the cause made him an outcast amongst his peers.
2002

Scientist Mark Plotkin races against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction.
2001
A day-to-day record of the construction of the Confederation Bridge linking Prince Edward Island to the mainland, Abegweit reveals some of the innovations that made this mammoth project one of the most impressive engineering feats in Canadian history.
1998

Examines the impact a century of struggling for survival has on a native people. It weaves the Crow tribe's turbulent past with modern-day accounts from Robert Yellow-tail, a 97-year-old Crow leader and a major reason for the tribe's survival. Poverty and isolation combine with outside pressures to undermine the tribe, but they resist defeat as "Contrary Warriors," defying the odds.
1985

Documentary chronicling the government relocation of 10,000 Navajo Indians in Arizona.
1985

Five Japanese carpenters came to Boston that summer to reconstruct a Kyoto silkweaver's 150 year old townhouse that had been packed in crates and shipped to Boston Children's Museum. This first-hand observation of traditional tools and woodworking techniques chronicles the assembly process. In the progress of construction the contractor performed three Shinto housebuilding ceremonies.
1981

Examines the violence and civil disobedience leading up to the hallmark decision in U.S. v. Washington, with particular reference to the Nisqually Indians of Frank's Landing in Washington.
1971

Shows representative samples of Northwest Indian art collected from six different museums, featuring the double-faced mechanical masks which were part of this culture.
1966