New York film fest: Qapirangajug: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change

Subject: Environmental Focus Opens Native American Film + Video Festival in New York City Mar 31-Apr 3
The New York screening premiere of “Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change” by renowned Nunavut-based director Zacharias Kunuk (“Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner”) and Winnipeg researcher and filmmaker Dr. Ian Mauro (“Seeds of Change”) will open the 15th Native American Film + Video Festival. Produced by the Film and Video Center of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the festival is held at the New York City branch of the museum from Thursday, Mar. 31 to Sunday, Apr. 3. The festival will include some 100 films and an international symposium about endangered indigenous waterways, “Mother Earth in Crisis,” on Friday, Apr. 1.

All programs are free to the public. Reservations are recommended for evening programs.

Screening on Thursday, Mar. 31, “Inuit Knowledge” teams the filmmakers with Inuit elders and hunters to uncover the social and ecological impacts of a warming Arctic. The film will also be simultaneously stream on the Internet courtesy of Isuma TV, an independent network of Native and Inuit media, at http://www.facebook.com/l/410765-6MnFeUEBI-zMPu9G1Omw;www.isuma.tv. Dr. Mauro will be in attendance for the screening and Zach Kunuk will be available via Skype. Both filmmakers will be available to answer questions from audiences worldwide via Twitter.

The day-long symposium, “Mother Earth in Crisis,” features award-winning films on Native perspectives about the fate of the earth and its rivers throughout the hemisphere. The program includes discussion with the filmmakers following each screening and a panel with environmental and indigenous organizations, moderated by Tonya Gonnella Frichner, of the American Indian Law Alliance. Co-presented with Amazon Watch, International Rivers and Rainforest Foundation.

The festival showcases outstanding feature films, short fictions, documentaries, animations and youth works from throughout the Americas. Screenings take place each evening and on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Other featured works include “Kissed by Lightning” by Shelley Niro (Mohawk); a a contemporary story based on a traditional tale; “Y el Rio Sigue Corriendo/And the River Flows On” by Carlos Efraín Pérez Rojas (Mixe), an award-winning film from Mexico about communities threatened by a dam project; and the world premiere of “Apache 8,” a documentary by Sande Zeig, telling the story of the first all-female wildland firefighting crew, comprised entirely of White Mountain Apache women.

The 15th Native American Film + Video Festival is a production of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Film and Video Center. The program is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. Special support has also been provided by the Ford Foundation and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the George Gustav Heye Center, is located at One Bowling Green in New York City, across from Battery Park. The museum is free and open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays until 8 p.m. Call (212) 514-3700 for general information and (212) 514-3888 for a recording about the museum’s public programs. By subway, the museum may be reached by the 1 to South Ferry, the 4 or 5 to Bowling Green or the R to Whitehall Street.
www.americanindian.si.edu