New Indigenous Short Films (“Earth Day”)

Tuesday, April 22, 2025 | 7:30 p.m. | The Hollywood Theatre

Every day is Earth Day when you live on Planet Earth. All the same, the Portland EcoFilm Festival celebrates with regional premieres of five new films centering the wisdom, accomplishments, stories, and struggles of Indigenous people around the living world. (Community conversation with directors follows.)

Featuring a community conversation with special guests:
Anna Lueck, director (HITOLÁAYCA)
Katsisionni Fox, director (KANENON:WE)
shalan joudry, director (WELIMA'Q)

Includes five official selections in our 2025 Indigenous Voices series

Click here to purchase tickets.

HITOLÁAYCA: GOING UPRIVER

Official Selection, 2025 Indigenous Voices Series

USA | 2024 | 25 minutes | Dir. Anna Lueck

The Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) have a long history of river travel. In fact, they introduced the practice to settlers; but centuries of displacement and disconnection means that Tribal members are now largely absent from their ancestral rivers. Now, Devin Reuben is training to be the first certified Nimiipuu whitewater guide of his generation.

KANENON:WE (ORIGINAL SEEDS)

Official Selection, 2025 Indigenous Voices Series

USA | 2024 | 27 minutes | Dir. Katsitsionni D Fox

Prior to European contact, there was a rich and vibrant diversity of foods on this land we now call the USA, with women being primarily responsible for caretaking of the seeds. Genocidal practices including boarding schools, land theft, forced relocation, imposed religion, and even food warfare contributed to a disconnection from traditional foods and seeds. Now, Indigenous seed keepers are vigilantly protecting the biodiversity of seeds under threat of agro-chemical Giants that currently control over 60 percent of seeds worldwide. Experience the grassroots Indigenous seed sovereignty movement led by Haudenosaunee women who step into their sacred responsibility as seed keepers, offering a glimpse of what is possible within Indigenous communities working towards food sovereignty.

ENCHUKUNOTO: THE RETURN

Official Selection, 2025 Indigenous Voices Series

Kenya | 2024 | 16 minutes | Dir. Laissa Malih

As the first female Maasai filmmaker, Laissa Malih initially set out to document the land-based practices of her forefathers and the 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 journey reflects the myriad challenges between Maasai youth and elders and the space where ancestral ways of passing down essential knowledge intersects with contemporary life and modern methods of education.

INDAI APAI DARAH

Official Selection, 2025 Indigenous Voices Series

Indonesia | 2024 | 15 minutes | Dir. Kynan Tegar

Throughout the island of Borneo, an explosion of palm oil plantations has led to mass deforestation, forcing many Indigenous people to allow logging of their sacred forests in exchange for immediate profits. However, in the Indonesian village of Sungai Utik, elders of the Dayak Iban people have been able to repel these extractive companies and protect the surrounding forests. This hybrid documentary, written and directed by 18-year-old Sungai Utik filmmaker Kynan Tegar, follows a young girl who makes a magical discovery while out in the woods, and then learns of the brave deeds of her elders.

WELIMA'Q

Official Selection, 2025 Indigenous Voices Series

Canada | 2024 | 5 minutes | Dir. shalan joudry

Be immersed in a sweetgrass landscape on the shores of Mi'kma'ki (aka eastern Canada). Between the salt water and forest, a family weaves themselves within the grasses. The sweet scent draws them in, and ultimately accompanies them home. Even in times of calamity, this earth breathes and bends towards us, continuing before and after we are gone.