[Short film] #Enchukunoto (The Return)

Laissa Malih with John Ole Tingoi (#Maasai)

"As the first female Maasai filmmaker, Laissa Malih initially set out to document the land-based practices of her forefathers and ways in which climate change is reshaping Maasai communities. In returning to the IL-Laikipiak Maasai village that her parents left when she was a child, Malih experiences an epiphany: her own life is a reflection of the myriad challenges between Maasai youth and elders, women and men, ancestral ways of passing down essential knowledge and modern methods of education.

"In ENCHUKUNOTO (The Return), Malih’s singular perspective also challenges ways in which the Maasai peoples have long been seen and documented by tourists and other outsiders. 'Many tourists come to our Maa lands to film the lions, the gazelles,' she observes. 'The camera takes and takes. I wonder what my camera can give my people in return?'

"Interweaving verite with Malih’s insights, Malih offers a heretofore unseen perspective as an insider and an outsider, a woman among men, a filmmaker carrying on sacred Maasai traditions of storytelling in an era defined by uncertainty."

https://www.reciprocity.org/films/enchukunoto

#IndigenousAfricans #MassaiPeople #WomenDirectedFilms #DCEFF #IndigenousStorytellers
#IndigenousFilms #LandDefenders #ReciprocityProject #Reciprocity #IndigenousFilmMakers #IndigenousWisdom #IndigenousKnowledge #Reciprocity #FilmVerite

[Short film] #Tayal #Forest Club

"Ancestors! We’ve gotten stuck here. Can you help us find the way home?” pleads Yukan, an Atayal teenager lost in the forests of his forefathers.

"Bullied at school and weighed down at home by his dad’s drinking, Yukan is eager to escape it all. When his best friend, Watan, invites him on a hike, a physically and emotionally bruised Yukan grabs his machete and the two boys head into the woods. But this isn’t just any hike, or just any woods — as Yukan and Watan’s youthful overconfidence runs them up against the realities of nightfall in the dense and mountainous Atayal homelands, other forces begin to reveal themselves. Before they can find a way home, these two young Tayal men must first humble themselves enough to learn the lessons that the land itself has to offer.

"In TAYAL FOREST CLUB, Taiwan’s first Indigenous female film director, Laha Mebow, shares a coming-of-age tale that interweaves Tayal characters, settings, and symbols with the complexities arising from her community’s interactions with contemporary society."

Watch:
https://www.reciprocity.org/films/tayal-forest-club

#Atayal #IndigenousTaiwanese #Taiwan #DCEFF #IndigenousStorytellers
#IndigenousFilms #LandDefenders #ReciprocityProject #Reciprocity #IndigenousFilmMakers #WomenDirectedFilms
#IndigenousWisdom #IndigenousKnowledge #Reciprocity