Indigenous

An exploration into the potentials, practicalities, and pitfalls of ‘playing Indian’.

Part of The Savage Philosophy of Endless Acknowledgment suite. 

A remarkable work about the struggle of the Waiãpi tribe, an indigenous people of Brazil, to combat the encroachment of prospectors on their land. Using performative storytelling as well as documentary footage, the tape builds a history of the many negotiations and public performances that the Waiãpi engaged in with the Brazilian government to demarcate and preserve some of their land, and to regain control of their resources.

Directed by Vincent Carelli and Dominique Gallois.

In Waiãpi with English subtitles.

Chief Pedro Mãmãindê (who directed the proceedings and the shoot itself) describes the necessity of strengthening the girls of his village by secluding them after their first menses. After several months, the village throws a party, with singing, feasting, and the ritual abduction of the girl by an allied village. When the Nambiquara of Mato Grosso see videotape of themselves performing this ritual, the excess of Western clothing makes them uncomfortable. The ritual is then re-enacted with traditional body painting and adornment.

Four Ikpeng children reply to a video-letter from the children of Sierra Maestra in Cuba, introducing their village, families, toys, celebrations, and ways of life with grace and lightheartedness. Curious to know about children from other cultures, they ask to continue the correspondence.

Direction and camera by Karané, Kumaré, and Natuyu Yuwipo Txicão; edited by Mari Corrê.

This is a rhythmic invocation of the ancestral fire, in which dazzling flames reanimate bones and natural elements. This is the shining of color.

Swerving between branded content, documentary, and a decolonial episode of MTV 'Cribs', the film revolves around a tour of an apartment which has supposedly been "given back" - led by reformed Native American impersonator, and frequent New Red Order collaborator, Jim Fletcher, alongside profiles of real individuals involved with the voluntary return of land to Indigenous peoples, organizations, and tribes. The film continues New Red Order's ongoing research into instances of settlers returning land to Indigenous peoples, a practice that has been growing exponentially over the past decade.

"We are happy. (Silence.) What do we do now, now that we are happy?"

-- Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

An overview of the Video in the Villages Project, this documentary shows how four different Amazonian native groups (Nambiquara, Gavião, Tikina, and Kaiapó) have embraced video and incorporated it in the service of their projects for political and ethnic affirmation.

Directed and photographed by Vincent Carelli.

An urgent reflection on indigenous sovereignty, the undead violence of museum archives, and postmortem justice through the case of the "Kennewick Man," a prehistoric Paleo-American man whose remains were found in Kennewick, Washington, in 1996.

Directors: Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, Jackson Polys

Director Of Photography: Samuli Haavisto

Producers: Mariana Silva, Pedro Neves Marques

Co Editors: Zack Khalil, Adam Khalil

Commissioned By: inhabitants, Contour Biennale 8, Natasha Ginawala

Executive Producer: Steve Holmgren

Video is introduced to the Enauênê Nauê Indians, a group still isolated in the North of Mato Grosso. An outgoing group, they respond with a surprising high-spirited performance that includes a good measure of clowning around and a re-enactment of an attack they suffered at the hands of their neighbors, the Cinta-Larga, not long ago. After growing accustomed to watching movies on video, they decide to produce their own.

Directed and photographed by Vincent Carelli.

In Enauenê-Nauê with English subtitles.

Sadie Curtis (1931-2012) was a Navajo woman descended from five generations of weavers. Filmed inside her hogan, Sadie talks about learning to weave as a child and how she gained fame from the creation of an American flag in the Navajo style.

An elegy to Diane Burns on the shapes of mortality and being, and the forms the transcendent spirit takes while descending upon landscapes of life and death. A place for new mythologies to syncopate with deterritorialized movement and song, reifying old routes of reincarnation. Where resignation gives hope for another opportunity, another form, for a return to the vicissitudes of the living and all their refractions.

“I’m from Oklahoma I ain’t got no one to call my own.
If you will be my honey, I will be your sugar pie way hi ya
way ya hi ya way ya hi yo.”

"I’ve been raised with stories of the medicine men in my family. A bundle that was used successfully to heal people. Stories of bear spirits that took care of us. I don’t know about my Scottish side as much, but I did know some of the last names of my ancestors over there. The Sinclairs and the Forsyths. I fell down a Google rabbit hole one day when the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft came out. There was one case with a last name and a location close to my Great Grandmother’s hometown that made me pause. It was a white magic case, protecting cattle, and talking with fairies.

Spanning 500 years of colonial destruction, Nosferasta tells the story of Oba, a Rastafarian vampire, and Christopher Columbus, Oba’s original biter, as they spread the colonial infection throughout the “new world.” Formally a vampire film and series of installations, the stylistically impressionistic Nosferasta examines the guilt of being complicit in imperial conquest, while also acknowledging the difficulty of unlearning centuries of vampiric conditioning. At its core Nosferasta asks, how can you decolonize what’s in your blood?

A remarkable work about the struggle of the Waiãpi tribe, an indigenous people of Brazil, to combat the encroachment of prospectors on their land. Using performative storytelling as well as documentary footage, the tape builds a history of the many negotiations and public performances that the Waiãpi engaged in with the Brazilian government to demarcate and preserve some of their land, and to regain control of their resources.

Directed by Vincent Carelli and Dominique Gallois.

In Waiãpi with English subtitles.

The Templo Mayor was the center of the Aztecs' religious life in Tenochtitlán, a ceremonial building in the heart of Mesoamerica. A center of political battles of contemporary Mexico. A ritual of resistance.

Interrupting the nightly news in an act of guerrilla television, Gómez-Peña returns to the persona of a Chicano-Aztec veejay—"The Mexican who talks back, the illegal Mexican performance artist with state of the art technology"—to elaborate the complications of American identity. This post-NAFTA Cyber Aztec pirate commandeers the television signal from his underground "Vato bunker", where virtual reality meets Aztec ritual. Gómez-Peña embodies the doubly radical Chicano performance artist, delivering radical ideas through a radical form of entertainment.

Among the Xavante of Mato Grosso, the Wai’a is an important stage in a male initiation ritual that happens once every 15 years. Wai’a: The Secret of Men documents the ceremonies that prepare young men for contact with supernatural forces. The young people of the village directed the filming and assisted with the editing to make a record for the next generation.

Directed by Virginia Valadão.

In Xavante with English subtitles.

A welcome as warning. Frequent collaborators and proxies for New Red Order - Jim Fletcher and Kate Valk co-host a confrontation with the viewer about the passivity of ongoing settler-colonial occupations, and introduce a contrite, yet self-congratulatory stew of televised recordings of public apologies to Indigenous peoples from the heads of state around the globe.  Featuring Donald Trump, Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen, Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and more!

Six Indians of different Waimiri and Atroari villages, located in the Amazon, document the day-to-day life of their relatives in the Cacau village. These images transport us to intimate scenes of their lifestyle and their intense relationship with nature.

Directed and photographed by Araduwá Waimiri, Iawusu Waimiri, Kabaha Waimiri, Sanapyty Atroari, Sawá Waimiri, and Wamé Atroari.

Edited by Leonardo Sette.

In Waimiri and Atroari with English subtitles.

An overview of the Video in the Villages Project, this documentary shows how four different Amazonian native groups (Nambiquara, Gavião, Tikina, and Kaiapó) have embraced video and incorporated it in the service of their projects for political and ethnic affirmation.

Directed and photographed by Vincent Carelli.

An urgent reflection on indigenous sovereignty, the undead violence of museum archives, and postmortem justice through the case of the "Kennewick Man," a prehistoric Paleo-American man whose remains were found in Kennewick, Washington, in 1996.

Directors: Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, Jackson Polys

Director Of Photography: Samuli Haavisto

Producers: Mariana Silva, Pedro Neves Marques

Co Editors: Zack Khalil, Adam Khalil

Commissioned By: inhabitants, Contour Biennale 8, Natasha Ginawala

Executive Producer: Steve Holmgren

Video is introduced to the Enauênê Nauê Indians, a group still isolated in the North of Mato Grosso. An outgoing group, they respond with a surprising high-spirited performance that includes a good measure of clowning around and a re-enactment of an attack they suffered at the hands of their neighbors, the Cinta-Larga, not long ago. After growing accustomed to watching movies on video, they decide to produce their own.

Directed and photographed by Vincent Carelli.

In Enauenê-Nauê with English subtitles.

An ode to the memories of El Aliso, the sycamore tree that once stood at the center of Yaangna, the Indigenous Gabrieleno village that Los Angeles grew out from. All elements sourced in the film are from the original site and the nearby Los Angeles River.

A myth illustrated on the stones of a waterfall, the reconstruction of a great communal hut, the attempt to recover objects kept for years in a museum in Manaus. In IAUARETÊ, Waterfall of the Jaguars the Tariano Indians, of the North-western Amazon, after decades of missionary catechism, decide to make a cultural record for future generations.

Direction: Vincent Carelli

Photography: Vincent Carelli and Altair Paixão

Editing: Joana Collier

Production: IPHAN / Vídeo nas Aldeias