6 Best Indigenous Films (by or about Indigenous People)
Who better to rank Indigenous films than me, an Indigenous filmmaker who has seen a lot of them? Stephen King said that to be a better writer, you have to read a lot of books. I take the same advice in regards to being a filmmaker.
Native Appropriations created a post back in 2010 that was a listing of Indigenous films as chosen by their Facebook audience. This list I created excludes the usual films included in lists like this (Such as Smoke Signals and Once Were Warriors) and focuses on newer films.
Here are the 6 I have chosen in no particular order:
Biographies
The Sapphires. An Australian production from 2012 that focuses on 4 Indigenous women touring Vietnam as a girl group called The Sapphires. The film was written and directed by Indigenous creatives and explores the impacts of colonization through music. It also examines the impact of the Stolen Generation on an Indigenous family.
Run as One: The Journey of the Front Runners. A short documentary from 2018. In 1967, 10 young Indigenous athletes ran the Pan Am torch 800 km, from Minneapolis to the opening ceremonies in Winnipeg. Directed by Winnipeg filmmaker Erica Daniels.
Comedies/Dramas
The Hunt for the Wilderpeople. A 2016 film about a rebellious foster kid and his foster uncle fleeing the authorities in the New Zealand bush. Indigenous children are overrepresented in foster care and a story about a foster kid doesn’t sound like the basis for a comedy. However there’s a lot of laughs in this story even when it makes you cry. Directed by Taika Waititi.
Thor: Ragnarok. I’m kind of cheating with this one as the director of this film also directed the above. However, Taika Waititi once said that a story is Indigenous if an Indigenous person tells it. Though Ragnarok doesn’t have an Indigenous character, it is heavily influenced by Maori culture. Its thoroughline is “Asgard is not a place but a people” reflects Indigenous experience of displacement and maintaining your identity despite that.
For Kids
Hoverboard. Sadly, I was unable to find this online. It’s a short film from 2012 directed by Sydney Freeland, a Navajo filmmaker. It’s about a little girl creating a cardboard time machine and sending her teddy bear to the future to get her a Mattel hoverboard.
UPDATE: watch Hoverboard here
Lilo & Stitch. A 2002 Disney film about an Indigenous Hawaiian girl who adopts an unusual pet. Lilo and her sister Nani are dealing with the loss of their parents and Nani’s struggle to raise her little sister on her own. The threat of Lilo being taken away by the authorities is constant and the thread of children raising children is a common story in Indigenous homes.
Why I Chose These as The Best Indigenous Films
I chose these films largely because they are fun. For so long, movies about Indigenous people have always focused on trauma. Though there are films in my list that do focus on that (The Sapphires and Lilo & Stitch specifically), the films aren’t entirely about that trauma. Yes, Kay in The Sapphire is a person who was taken from her family because she was light skinned. Lilo may be taken away from her only family because her older sister (at 19) cannot take care of her adequately. But that is not all they are about. Lilo adopts an alien, she surfs with her sister, and dances hula. The women of The Sapphires become a big hit during their concerts for American soldiers in Vietnam and bicker a lot because they’re sisters and that’s what sisters do.
Like Indigenous people in real life, trauma is not their whole lives, it is a part of it.
Again, this is not a comprehensive list so feel free to reach out to me if you wanted to learn more about including these sorts of resources in your classroom.
