Raven Tales: Bald Eagle  (2007, 25 min. animation) CANADA
Executive producer: Chris Kientz (Cherokee).

All the kids who are walking along with Eagle one day ask him why he is bald. Eagle tells them as long as they don’t tell anyone else, he will tell them how he came to look like he does. He tells them about the world before the light, the Great Spirit called Eagle and Raven to come and carry him across the world for he wished to see it. They decide to visit Frog, who tells them a story of how the world will one day be filled with light and people. The Great Spirit asks frog to show him where all this will happen, and they all climb on top of Eagle to get there.

The Beginning They Told
(2003, 11 min. Animation) US
Director: Joseph Erb (Cherokee)
Produced for: the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
In Cherokee with English subtitles.

In the beginning times, the animals living in the sky vault work together to bring about the creation of the earth from a tiny piece of mud.

In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman
Director: Camille Manybeads Tso
26 Minutes • USA • Documentary Short

In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman is about a 13 year-old Navajo filmmaker who finds her own strengths through interviewing her Grandmother about their ancestral history. She imagines what it would be like to be her Great-Great-Great-Grandmother, Yellow Woman, who lived through the Navajo Long Walk (1864 - 1868).

Camille Manybeads Tso (Navajo) learned the art of film making from the volunteer Indigenous youth media literacy collective, “Outta Your Backpack Media.” Camille has worked with OYBMedia since she was 9, and is currently the youngest youth mentor.

Camille researched the time period, wrote a script of re-enactments of her family’s stories, recruited her cousins to help, made costumes, directed, filmed, acted, and edited this piece together. She even sang some of the songs in the soundtrack. The results are a beautiful film of the power of reclaiming oral histories. Performed by the descendants of Yellow Woman and filmed in many of the places where the events took place.

Pow Wow Dreams
(2006, 8 min.) US
Director: Princess Lucaj (Gwich'in)

Powwow Dreams tells the story of four sisters (played by Thirza Defoe, Elena Finney, Princess Lucaj and Delanna Studi) who live life on the road going from powwow to powwow, but face a crisis when one of the sisters decides to leave the group.

Ancestor Eyes
(2006, 19 min.) US
Director & Writer: Kalani Queypo

After getting sick, a young Native American woman, Willa, returns to her mother's home where they both must come to terms with her illness. Willa's mother, who had been a long time 'shut in', begins venturing outside with her camcorder, taping the sunrise and mountains, bringing the outside world in to the bed ridden Willa. Pain turns into a source of inspiration, igniting her mother's gift for storytelling and ultimately paving a path of magical transformations.

The Migration  (2009, 10 min.) US.  Director: Sydney Freeland (Navajo)
Writer: Cody Harjo (Seminole, Otoe, Creek, Cherokee)

In a future wracked by global warming, an authoritarian government forces siblings to flee with seeds that may save the world.

‘The Migration’ is a worst-case scenario,” Harjo said, “but there is always that glimmer of hope. I consider it a futuristic ecological myth.” Director Sydney Freeland liked the idea of history repeating itself. “This could’ve taken place 100 years ago. In the 1800s, what happened to the Natives was an apocalypse.” Among the challenges she faced were making a cool autumn day seem boiling-hot and filming in a one-room shack. “It was an intense shoot,” Freeland said. “Five characters. … a lot of coverage.” She also had trainees shadowing the professionals and learning on the job. She had to find a balance between explaining things to them and getting the work done.

Liminality.  (2009, 13 min.) US.  Director: James Lujan (Taos Pueblo)
Writer: Migizi Pensoneau (Ponca/Ojibwe)

A young Indian man gets more than he bargained for when he enters a reservation bar looking for help against a gang of vampire bikers.

Writer Migizi Pensoneau has wanted to be a filmmaker since he yearned to remake “The Blob” at age 6. He’s worked on films for a production company, the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Sundance Institute. He also contributed to the fifth season of ABC’s “Alias” as part of a fellowship program. When he learned of this year’s “grindhouse” theme from Creative Spirit’s James Lujan, he pitched Lujan an idea about a wanderer, a bar, bikers and vampires. “He didn’t think I could fit that all in,” Pensoneau said, “so I said, ‘Yeah, I can.’” The result was “Liminality,” which means “the condition of being on a threshold or at the beginning of a process.”

Lujan stepped out from his usual behind-the-scenes role to direct the film. “From a cinematic standpoint the ‘Liminality’ script was a challenge because the entire story is set in one location and there are extended patches of dialog between a few characters.” He made it work by turning the location into another character and making sure viewers didn’t get lost in the back story.