[Short film]: ARMEA

Letila Mitchell (#Rotuman) with Rotuman Women’s Weaving Collective & Iane Tavo (Rotuman)

“If you listen to nature, it will lead the way…” Elder Gagaj Taimanav

"Steeped in symbolism and no larger than a child’s hand, the diminutive bird known as the Armea is found in only one place on Earth: the Pacific island of Rotuma.

"After scores of performances around the world and years away from Rotuma, ARMEA opens as the dedicated dancers and musicians of Rako Pasefika make their long awaited return home to the island. Arriving by air yet received just as their seafaring predecessors were, the Rako team engages with creative elders in the hopes of revitalizing ancient stories that are in danger of being forgotten. As Rako prepares to perform a new production inspired by the totemic Armea, their relationships with elders, knowledge keepers, healers, artisans and cultural custodians reveal deep and reciprocal connections to this ancient land and to the immense ocean from which it rises. Both an offering to those who have guided the way — such as the hån lep he rua sacred women — and a promise to sustain sacred artforms for generations to come, ARMEA is an ode to all that is small yet sacred."

Watch: https://www.reciprocity.org/films/armea

#SolarPunkSunday #Nature #ProtectNature #WomenCenteredFilms #AsianPacificIslanders #DCEFF #IndigenousStorytellers
#IndigenousFilms #OceansAreLife #ReciprocityProject #Reciprocity #IndigenousFilmMakers #IndigenousWisdom #ProtectTheSacred #IndigenousKnowledge #Reciprocity #RakoPasefika #Rako #PacificOcean #WomensWeavingCollective

[Short film] #Tentsítewahkwe

Katsitsionni Fox (#Mohawk) with Xochitl Fox (#Mexica / #Azteca)

"As a young girl, Jessica Shenandoah (Wolf Clan from the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation) learned about harvesting medicine and food plants alongside her mother and grandmother. Contemporary Native People are often separated many generations from their traditional knowledge due to the effects of colonial realities such as boarding school, forced religion, and land theft.

"In the latest Native women-centered film by Mohawk filmmaker Katsitsionni Fox (Ohero:kon - Under the Husk, Without a Whisper - Konnon:kwe), Shenandoah goes on a journey across four seasons and multiple Native territories to connect with other knowledge keepers reviving the land-based knowledge of their ancestral grandmothers in order to return to time-honored practices of pottery making, mat weaving, hide tanning, medicine making, food gathering, and more. Jessica embodies the Mohawk concept of Tentsítewahkwe as she picks up knowledge of the old ways, these slow methods of creating and connecting in reciprocity with the Earth.

"This film is at once a thank you to the Native women who imbued their descendents with blood memory of these practices and a promise to future generations of Native people that these practices will stay alive for generations to come."

Watch:
https://www.reciprocity.org/films/tentsitewahkwe

#DCEFF #IndigenousStorytellers
#IndigenousFilms #LandDefenders #ReciprocityProject #Reciprocity #IndigenousFilmMakers
#IndigenousWisdom #IndigenousKnowledge #IndigenousReclamation #Reciprocity #MotherEarth #Akwesasne #MohawkNation #TraditionalMedicine #LandBasedKnowledge #WomenCenteredFilms