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Films

Aanikoobijigan (Ancestor / Great-Grandparent / Great-Grandchild)

Rainy forest scene with bokeh lights, reflecting ancestral trees and sun.
Indigenous Cinema of the Americas

Audience Award, NEXT, Sundance Film Festival

Trapped in museum archives, Ancestors bend time and space to find their way home. History, spirituality, and the law collide as tribal repatriation specialists fight to return and rebury Indigenous human remains, exposing the pervasive worldviews that justified their collection.

Aanikoobijigan (Ancestor / Great-Grandparent / Great-Grandchild) documents the vital work of the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance (MACPRA), a group representing all Michigan tribes in the struggle to bring Ancestors and funerary objects back from settler-colonial institutions.

“At once a decry of the disregard the world has put on Native-American bodies and a celebration of traditions that invite us to…commune with those who’ve long since passed.” -Zachary Lee, RogerEbert.com