John Trudell to be a Special Guest at Native American film Session
Start your 2012 Wild & Scenic Film Festival with our powerful Native American film session presented in partnership with the Tsi Akim Maidu Tribe. This special session will begin at 5pm with music and celebration. The event will include two feature length films, shown at the historic Nevada Theatre on January 13, 2012. John Trudell will be our special guest speaking in response to a retrospective screening of Trudell, which was a 2006 Wild & Scenic Film Festival award winner.
In addition, We Still Live Here Âs Nutayuneân, will be screened, telling a remarkable story of cultural revival by the Wampanoag of Southeastern Massachusetts. The film follows Jessie Little Doe and other members of the Wampanaog communities on an odyssey that would uncover hundreds of documents written in their language, lead Jessie to a Masters in Linguistics at MIT, and result in something that had never been done before – bringing a language alive again in an American Indian community after many generations with no Native speakers.
We Still Live Here pertains to the TsiAkim Maidu who are actively working to ensure that new speakers and cultural practitioners are supporting the preservation and perpetuation of Maidu language and culture. The TsiAkim Maidu Language and Culture Project includes language classes to increase the number of Maiduan language speakers and include a younger demographic. Farrell Cunningham, Maidu language teacher and the youngest speaker of the Maidu language, will talk about the project, and his students will perform a skit in Maidu.
Trudell is a retrospective film included in our 2012 festival as a celebration of Wild & Scenic’s favorite films from throughout our 10 years of festivals. Trudell incorporates the activist’s lyrical poetry, so powerful the FBI consider it dangerous. By following John Trudell from his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska to his service in the Vietnam war, to the occupation of Alcatraz Island by Indians of All Tribes, and to his leadership with the American Indian Movement, the film creatively presents the truth and humanity behind the legends and rumors. After the deaths of his wife, children and mother-in-law in a fire which John Trudell believes could be arson, he began to articulate his grief and rage in music beginning in 1979. His music includes the album AKA Grafitti Man, which Bob Dylan declared as the best album of 1986.
Musicans Good Shield and Mignon Geli as well as the Mina McNair Family Singers will perform during the event, creating a dynamic evening of music, film and the spoken word.
To watch an interview with Anne Makepeace, director of We Still Live Here, visit http://www.plumtv.com/videos/we-still-live-here .
