NAPT Programs

America by the Numbers
The Futuro Media Group in conjunction with NAPT is airing independent film submissions to air as part of a PBS pilot. The pilot episode--funded by the National Minority Consortia (NMC), NAPT and the Ford Foundation--is called "Do It Yourself (DIY) Democracy."

Apache Scouts, an Untold Story
The U.S. Army had little to no success subduing Apache bands of the Southwest until White Mountain Apaches enlisted as Army Scouts. The motive for this service was a political strategy to secure homeland for posterity of the White Mountain Apaches and had little to do with allegiance to the U.S.

Barking Water 
A lyrical road journey through the flat plains of Oklahoma, the film follows an older, estranged couple as they visit the stations of their fractured relationship. A frank, unsentimental love story, the film is also a love letter to the people and places of the director's home state. [Website] [Press Kit]

Bridge the Gap to Pine Ridge
Host Chris Bashinelli (MTV, The Sopranos) highlights the captivating facets and challenging issues of everyday life as he follows "a day in the life of" the Oglala Lakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Chasing Voices: John Peabody Harrington & the Language Revitalization Movement
When anthropologist John Peabody Harrington died in 1961 at the age of 77, few understood the significance of his work. His obssessively driven career became dedicated to preserving Native America's dying languages.

Crying Earth Rise Up
Through those who oppose and support the expansion of uranium mining over the High Plains/Ogallala and the Arikara aquifiers in western South Dakota and Nebraska, audiences learn about the importantance of preserving and protecting land and water.

GRAB 
Narrated by Parker Posey, the film is an intimate portrait of the little-documented Grab Day in the villages of the Laguna Pueblo Tribe, who annually throw water and food items from the rooftop of a home to people standing below them. [Website] [Press Kit]

GROWING NATIVE 
A seven-part series that focuses on reclaiming traditional knowledge and food ways to address critical issues of health and wellness, the environment and human rights. The series will focus on Tribes, stories and events from seven geographic regions. [Webpage]

Indian Relay 
A style of bareback horse racing involving four to eight teams, consist of families with Indian Relay roots stretching back generations. Bragging rights and money are at stake for the teams that compete in the circuit. [Press Kit]

Indians: An Unexpected Story
Comprised of interviews, family histories, archival footage and music, the series provides greater appreciation of the histories and achievements of contemporary Native American individuals and Indigenous communities.

Injunuity
A mix of animation, music and real thoughts from people exploring our world from the Native perspective. Covering such topics as Creation, First Contact and the Soul of America--its a visually stunning, thought-provoking mosaic of reflections.

LaDonna Harris: Indian 101
A Comanche from Oklahoma, Ladonna helped convince the Nixon administration to return sacred ground to the Taos Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, in 1970 founded the Americans for Indian Opportunity and became a vice-presidential nominee in 1980.

Losing Ground
The North Arctic landscape is changing rapidly--so too are the lives of Inupiat Natives living on the tiny, vanishing island of Kivalina, Alaska. Many believe global warming is to blame, but filmmakers show how one humble village fights to save their homeland under a cloud of doubt.

The Medicine Game
Two brothers from the Onondaga Nation pursue their dreams of playing lacrosse for Syracuse University. With the dream nearly in reach, the boys are caught in a constant struggle to define their Native identity, live-up to their family's expectations and balance challenges on and off the Reservation.

My Louisiana Love 
The film traces Monique Verdin's quest to find a place in her Native American community--the Houma Nation--as it reels from decades of environmental degradation. Monique must overcome the loss of her house, her father and her partner--and redefine the meaning of home. [Press Kit]

Native Waters: A Chitimacha Recollection
The film presents audiences with a vision of one of the most unique natural landscapes in North America--the Atchafalaya Basin, which is the largest river swamp in America and is now feeding nearly a million acres of bottomland hardwoods, bayous and backwater lakes. [Press Kit]

Racing the Rez
For Navajo and Hopi Tribes, running is more than a sport. The film moves beyond stereotypes of the past and present as two high school boys' cross country teams--Tuba City and Chinle--compete for the state championship title. [Website] [Press Kit]

Rising Voices
Lakota youth in particular are eager to re-appropriate the language and its embedded concepts of place, ethics, action and purpose--on their own terms, sometimes in ways that clash with others' expectations or the status quo.

Roadman
Explore the origins and complexity of the Native American Church through the lens of practicing Navajo "Roadmen." Follow these NAC spiritual leaders in Navajo land as they travel to the peyote fields in Texas, deal with the Federal government and protect their religious freedom from both Navajo and outside forces.

Sacred Stick
The history of lacrosse in North America is a rich and multi-layered one. Much more than a Native American ball and stick game, lacrosse is a cultural window into Native American communities and their historical relationship with each other and the dominant culture.

Sousa on the Rez: Marching to the Beat of a Different Drum 
When you hear the phrase "Native American music" you may not think of tubas, trumpets and Sousa marches. Yet, this rich musical tradition has been a part of Native American culture for over one hundred years. [Website] [Press Kit]

Standing Bear's Footsteps 
In 1877, the Ponca people were exiled from their Nebraska homeland to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. To honor his dying son's last wish to be buried in his homeland, Chief Standing Bear set-off on a grueling, six-hundred-mile journey home. Captured en-route, Standing Bear sued a famous U.S. army general for his freedom. [Press Kit]

The Thick Dark Fog 
At the age of five, Walter Littlemoon (Lakota) was removed from his family to attend a federal government boarding school where his culture, language and spirituality were suppressed. Embark on Walter's journey to heal himself and his community while reclaiming his heritage. [Website] [Press Kit]

Up Heartbreak Hill 
Thomas, Tamara and Gabby--three Native American teenagers in Navajo, New Mexico--traverse their senior year at a Reservation high school. As graduation approaches, they must decide whether to stay in their community--a place inextricably linked to their identity--or leave in pursuit of opportunities elsewhere. [Press Kit]

Urban Indians
Explore the legacy of the U.S. government's policies that terminated Tribal status and relocated Reservation and off-Reservation Indians to metropolitan cities across the country. The Termination & Relocation period lasted from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s--yet, generations later, its impact can still be felt.

Warrior Women
From the perspective of Lakota activist Madonna Thunder Hawk, the film traces the untold history of women's activism in the Red Power Movement and follows Thunder Hawk as she encounters the major players in events that changed the landscape of Indian Country forever.

Without a Tribe
Unlock the clandestine social, economic and political conditions of the late 1600s when Native youth and women were stolen from homelands and imprisoned, then ransomed into domestic servitude, hard labor and military training only to be labeled with the lowest class identity as Genizaro Indians.

A Blackfeet Encounter
In 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition headed home from the Pacific Ocean. But, Meriwether Lewis had not yet accomplished a mission from Thomas Jefferson, which would take him into the heart of Blackfeet country in what is now Montana and force him into the expedition's only life of death encounter with a party of Blackfeet Indians. [Press Kit]

Apache 8 
The all-women wildland firefighting crew from the White Mountain Apache Tribe has been fighting fires on the Reservation and throughout the United States for more than 30 years. With humor and tenderness, four extraordinary women from different generations of the Apache 8 crew share their personal stories. [Press Kit]

Aleut Story
In the turbulence of war, in a place where survival was just short of miraculous, the Aleuts of Alaska would redefine themselves and America. From indentured servitude and isolated internment camps, to Congress and the White House, this is the incredible story of the Aleut's decades-long struggle for our nation's ideals. [Website]

Choctaw Code Talkers 
In 1918, not yet citizens of the United States, Choctaw members of the American Expeditionary Forces were asked to use their Native language as a powerful tool against the German Forces in World War I--setting a precedent for code talking as an effective military weapon and establishing them as America's original code talkers. [Press Kit]

Columbus Day Legacy 
Explore the American issues of free speech and ethnic pride against the ongoing Columbus Day Parade controversy in Denver, Colorado. Viewers enter into this very personal yet very public conflict between Denver's Italian-American and Native American communities, asking tough questions about identity and history in America. [Press Kit]

For the Generations: Native Story & Performance 
Native American performers infuse contemporary genres of dance and music with traditional elements from their Tribal heritage. Through artist interviews and performances, six profiles document the effort to bring this "Native Fusion" genre to mainstream performing arts. [Press Kit]

For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska
Like Native Americans in the lower 48, Alaska Natives struggled to keep their basic human rights, as well as protect their ancient ties to the land. The Bill of Rights did not apply to them. Through extensive reenactments, the film reveals the remarkable people and their struggle for civil rights. [Press Kit]

Games of the North: Playing for Survival 
For thousands of years, traditional Inuit sports have been vital for survival within the unforgiving Arctic. Acrobatic and explosive, these ancestral games evolved to strengthen mind, body and spirit. [Press Kit]

Good Meat 
Once a star athlete, Beau LeBeau's (Oglala Lakota)  unhealthy weight which has triggered the onset of Type II Diabetes. His mother's untimely death motivates him to drop the excessive pounds. Enlisting the help of a physician and a nutritionist, he starts exercising and begins a traditional Lakota diet of buffalo meat and other Native foods. [Press Kit]

Jim Thorpe, the World's Greatest Athlete
This is a biography of the Native American athlete who became a sports icon in the first half of the 20th century. Beginning with Thorpe's boyhood in Indian Territory, it chronicles his rise to athletic stardom, his fight for equal pay for Native Americans in the movies and his later advocacy of Indian self-determination. [Press Kit]

Looking Towards Home
An increasing number of Native Americans are leaving the Reservation for life in city areas such as Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and the San Francisco Bay area. The life of urban Indians is shown primarily through the eyes of these individuals as they attempt to maintain their cultural identity while living away from the Reservation.

March Point 
In the 1950s, two refineries were built on March Point, an area that was once part of the Swinomish Reservation by treaty. Three boys' awaken to the destruction that these refineries have brought in their communities. Ambivalent environmental ambassadors at the onset, the boys grapple with their assignment through humor. [Website]

Power Paths
Explore ways to create the new renewable energy resources needed to preserve the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota Sioux communities. By revealing the struggle Indian leaders face harnessing abundant natural forces of wind and sun on millions of acres of Tribal lands, the film tells the story about implementing a new path toward energy security. [Press Kit]

The Silence (FRONTLINE)
St. Michael is a village of 370 residents on the southwest coast of Alaska, 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle. It is isolated and remote. Priests became trusted elders in the community, but weird things would start to happen upon their arrival in 1968 when Father Endal, Deacon Lundowski and Brother Smario arrived at the Catholic Church. [Website] [Webpage]

Smokin' Fish
Cory Mann (Tlingit) is a quirky businessman hustling to make a dollar in Juneau, Alaska. He gets hungry for smoked salmon and decides to spend a summer smoking fish. The unusual story of his life and the untold history of his people interweave with the process of preparing traditional food and keeping his business afloat. [Press Kit]

Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders
Imagine a new primetime PBS series that explores the world, combining journalistic curiousity with the adventure of travel and the soul-satisfying, hip-shaking pleasures of great music. All wrapped-up in compelling stories told by four savvy reporters--enter a world of exciting music, surprising destinations and unforgettable stories.

Standing Silent Nation
When the Oglala Sioux Tribe passed an ordinance separating industrial hemp from its illegal cousin, marijuana, Alex White Plume researched hemp and found it to be a versatile, sustainable crop thta could grow in the inhospitable soil of the South Dakota Badlands--envisioning a new economy. [Webpage]

To Brooklyn & Back: A Mohawk Journey
For over 50 years, the Kahnawake Mohawks of Quebec, Canada, occupied a 10-square-block hub in the North Gowanus section of Brooklyn, which became known as Little Caughnawaga. Filmmaker Reghan Tarbell explores her roots and traces the connections of her family to the once legendary Mohawk community. [Press Kit]

Unnatural Causes...Is Inequality Making Us Sick?
The four-hour series crisscrosses the nation uncovering startling new findings that suggest there is much more to our health than bad habits, health care or unlucky genes. The social circumstances in which we are born, live and work can actually get under our skin and disrupt our physiology as much as germs and viruses.

Video Letters from Prison
Embark on a journey of transformation as three sisters from the Pine Ridge Reservation reconnect with their incarcerated father via a series of video letters. The Poor Bear girls are not sure they even want to connect--but their mother, Cindy, helps them overcome reluctance and hurt. [Press Kit]

Walking into the Unknown
Become a first eye-witness in the journey of Dr. Arne Vainio (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) as he realizes that he needs to digest and personally implement the advice that he gives his own middle-aged patients upon his impending 50th birthday. [Press Kit]

Waila! Making the People Happy
Central European immigrants brought polka music to America in the mid-19th century, but the people of the O'odham Indian Nations in Arizona's Sonora desert have made the mixture of accordians, saxophones and percussion all their own. Taken from the word "baila," which means "dance" in Spanish, Akimel and Tohono people have created "waila." [Press Kit]

Waterbuster
A personal story of how a multi-million dollar project displaced the Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara Nation in North Dakota. Trhough interviews and archival footage, a uniquely Native American perspective emerges, giving light to a portrait of resilience and survival in the face of catastrophic change. [Press Kit]

Way of the Warrior
Examine the visceral nature of war and the bravery of Native American veterans who served in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War--and came to grips with the difficult post-war personal and societal conditions. [Webpage]

Weaving Worlds
A compelling and intimate portrait of economic and cultural survival through art. The film artfully relates the Navajo concepts of kinship and reciprocity with the human and cultural connections to sheep, wool, water and land in the world of contemporary Navajo weavers struggling for self-sufficiency. [Press Kit]

We Shall Remain (American Experience)
A provocative multi-media project that establishes Native history as an essential part of American history. A five-part series that shows how Native peoples valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture--from the Wampanoags of New England to the bold new leaders of the civil rights movement. [Website]