Those with an interest in independent filmmaking will want to check out the Indigenous Film Night on Saturday, Oct. 14 at Fortune Bay Resort Casino beginning at 4 p.m.
The event will begin with a series of five short films. “Extraction” features poetry and animation by Moira Villard. “Closed System” is a science fiction short by the Bawaadan Collective. Three documentary films will be featured, including “Language Keepers” by Ajuawak Kapashesit, “Good Mythology-Jonathan Thunder” by Sergio Rapu, and “KaYaMenTa” by Jules Koostachin. A question-and-answer period will follow with the film makers.
Showings will break for dinner at 5:30 p.m., and dinner can be purchased at Fortune Bay.
The feature presentation, “A Winter Love,” a modern day inter-tribal love story written, directed, and produced by accomplished Navajo playwright Rhiana Yazzie, who also plays the female lead in the film, begins at 6:30 p.m. Yazzie received the achievement in directing award for “A Winter Love” from the LA Skins Festival in 2021, and the film has been screened at both domestic and international film festivals, including the Wairoa Māori Film Festival, Richmond, Virginia’s Pocahontas Reframed Festival, the Quetzalcoatl Indigenous Film Festival in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the DreamSpeakers Indigenous Film Festival in Canada. The film, set in Minnesota, features original music written by Mille Lacs Ojibwe musician Leah Lemm, a familiar vocalist to listeners of area Native rock band War Bonnet.
Yazzie will be present to answer questions after the screening.
The festival is free and open to the public. A donation of $3-5 is suggested.