Tainá–Kan, The Big Star (2005, 16 min.) Brazil. Adriana Figueiredo. A traditional tale of the Karaja Indians of Brazil tells a story of Tainá–Kan, the big star Venus, who comes to earth as a man and gives the gift of agriculture. In Portuguese with English subtitles.
The Legend of Quillwork Girl and her Seven Star Brothers (2003, 14 min.) U.S. Steve Barron. This Cheyenne legend about a skillful girl and her brothers explains how the Big Dipper originated. This selection from the award-winning feature Dreamkeeper is shown courtesy of Hallmark Entertainment.
Letter from an Apache (1983, 12 min.) U.S. Barbara Wilk. An animated film tells the remarkable story of Carlos Montezuma, or Wassajah, who became one of the first American Indian medical doctors.
Maq and the Spirit of the Woods (2006, 8 min.) Canada. Phyllis Grant (Mi'kmaq). A gentle elder—the spirit of the woods—teaches Maq to appreciate his own special gifts.

Alcatraz Is Not an Island
(2000, 60 min.) Director: James M. Fortier (Métis/Ojibwe)
The 1969–71 occupation of Alcatraz Island was a watershed in American history. The tumultuous days of "Red Power" live again in occupation footage and interviews with participants.

No Screenings June 2 – 6, 11, 13, July 18, August 20 and September 12. Programs are subject to change.

A Thousand Roads (2005, 40 min.) US. Director: Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho). A Thousand Roads is a fictional work, produced by NMAI to explore the human context of the NMAI's collections. The film is striking visually, and presents through its beauty and its stories an imaginative entry into knowing about Native people living in the vast indigenous geography that comprises the Americas. Rather than presenting a conventional historical perspective, the film is composed of short contemporary fictions about individuals, grounding them in emotional truths to which an audience can easily relate. The film threads together four stories, taking us into the life of a stressed-out Mohawk stockbroker in Manhattan; a young Inupiat girl sent to live with her grandmother in Barrow, Alaska; a Navajo gang member who must find his core values in his reservation on the mesas of New Mexico; and a Quechua healer in Peru, attempting to save a sick child. Each story explores what it means to belong to a specific community.

More than a Museum (2007, 10 min.) US. Produced by: the National Museum of the American Indian. A brief look at the history of the National Museum of the American Indian in New York and its dynamic programs.

Snowsnake: Game of the Haudenosaunee (2006, 11 min.) US. Produced by: the NMAI Resource Center, George Gustav Heye Center. Featuring master snow snake maker and player Fred Kennedy (Seneca), this video introduces the lively traditional game that's played today by Iroquois men in competitions throughout Haudenosaunee lands in the Northeast and in Canada.

A Cielo Abierto/Under the Open Sky (2007, 38 min.) Mexico.José Luis Matías (Nahua) and Carlos Pérez Rojas (Mixe). In Spanish with English subtitles. Mexico's largest gold deposit is found in El Carrizalillo, Guerrero, where the people live in grinding poverty. In early 2007, community landholders organized in order to seek a fair annual lease payment and social benefits for the community from a Canadian transnational mining company.