What are Indigenous Films?

Indigenous films are an essential element of culture, storytelling, and history, but what are indigenous films? Indigenous filmmaking has a strong place in culture and history, but what exactly do we mean when we mention an indigenous film? Indigenous films, produced by the communities of Native Americans and indigenous people worldwide are absolutely vital to sharing the way our native cultures are to be represented, so what is the indigenous film all about?

What are Indigenous Films?

Indigenous films are those which have been produced by Native Americans and Indigenous people hat largely makeup communities across the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunately, indigenous films are largely underrepresented and we don’t see enough of them, but why?

Much of the reason we lack indigenous films is because there is a lack of support for our Native American and indigenous people. However, indigenous films are incredibly important none the less. In fact, these films are a testimony to heritage, culture, and community.

Represented by less than 1% of characters on television and in motion pictures, indigenous films target in subjects that are key to Native communities. They tend to reflect values that are distinctly different from our everyday understand and they can teach  us a lot about the Native communities that make up much of our society worldwide.

Topics Covered by Indigenous Films

Indigenous films cover many different topics and they have a very distinct method of storytelling like nothing else in television or in theaters. In fact, indigenous filmmakers share stories of the cultural differences, moral values, and challenges faced by our Indigenous tribes and native people. Through the presentation of pressing issues that affect indigenous tribes around the world, these films have the power to help us better understand members of these communities in an entirely new light.

Many times, these films cover systemic issues such as poverty, addiction, and abuse. Indigenous films also look to represent the underrepresented communities that so many indigenous people are a part of. Positions of power, and the lack of key decision makers in upper community motion picture curation, museums, and studios result in a few indigenous people attempting to make changes that are valuable to the entire community despite little support.

So, what are indigenous films? They are films produced by Native Americans and other indigenous tribes or communities that reflect the unique culture, history and values of the indigenous communities. They are largely underrepresented in the motion picture industry, although we are starting to see more indigenous films come out through independent producers in recent years and we hope to continue to see the community further represented in an impartial manner.