Imagining Indigenous Cinema: New Voices, New Visions

In the post-Standing Rock era of increased Native visibility, Indigenous artists influenced by personal backgrounds and intergenerational experiences are creating an explosive awakening. Bursting with thought-provoking and genre-defying explorations, Imagining Indigenous Cinema: New Voices, New Visions spotlights a generation of innovative, Indigenous filmmakers working with the moving image today.

In recent years, a shift in on-screen narratives has moved beyond the need to prove Indigenous survival and existence to films that challenge prior rhetoric. This new era of filmmakers shifts the needle from a reactionary storytelling practice towards proactive methods of world-building. Themes of post-colonial resilience, re-matriation of cultures and traditions, explorations of land-based relationships, criticism of the institutional and socio-political settler state and celebrations of Indigenous queer joy are exhibited in vibrant embodiments of time-based art. By crafting narratives that center their own stories and culture, these filmmakers establish new forms of Indigenous cinematic expression and envision Indigenous futures. Their work offers inspiring new possibilities that resist dominant representations and actively Indigenize the medium.

Imagining Indigenous Cinema features over 40 films playing over the course of three weekends in June, where screenings will be accompanied by filmmaker discussions and panels. Fracturing conventional constraints of form and story, this program showcases short and feature-length film and video work made by Indigenous artists creating on and with the land base currently known as the United States and the Indigenous Nations within.

The program is bookended by a masterclass with artist Fox Maxy (Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians and Payómkawish) and a retrospective screening and conversation with Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians). Additional confirmed in-person participants include Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo Nation) and Christopher Kahunahana (Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian).

Screenings will take place at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum and at the Eagle Theatre, the home of Vidiots Foundation, as well as live-streamed when possible. Vidiots Foundation is dedicated to inspiring human interaction around film and media through preserving, growing and providing access to its diverse DVD, Blu-ray and rare VHS collection, and producing memorable and affordable screening events and vital education programs for all. Vidiots is reopening in June 2023 at the historic Eagle Theatre in Northeast Los Angeles.

Who: Presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the UCLA American Indian Studies Center

When: June 2–18, 2023

Where: 

Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum

10899 Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood Village

and

Eagle Theatre, home of Vidiots Foundation

4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. in Eagle Rock

Website:

https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2023/imagining-indigenous-cinema-new-voices-new-visions

Imagining Indigenous Cinema Flyer Available for Download