Films With Impact
We encourage you to watch these films to gain a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the realities Native and Indigenous women—and communities—face every day, and to engage with the stories that too often go unseen and unheard.
- The Girl Called Hatter Fox – 1977
- American Holocaust: When It’s All Over I’ll Still Be Indian – 2000
- Highway of Tears – 2015
- Indian Horse – 2017
- Bones of Crows – 2023
- Killers of the Flower Moon – 2023
- Fancy Dance – 2024
The Girl Called Hatter Fox
1977
The Girl Called Hatter Fox, a rebellious, angry seventeen-year-old Navajo girl who is despised by white society in New Mexico. Locked up in a reformatory and on a path of self-destruction, Hatter meets Teague Summer, an idealistic young white doctor from the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is determined to save her from herself. Eventually, after many false starts, Hatter begins to make progress. Summer takes on more and more responsibility for her welfare, and an unlikely friendship takes root before the novel reaches its tragic conclusion.
American Holocaust: When It's All Over I'll Still Be Indian
2000
This powerful, hard-hitting documentary reveals the link between Adolf Hitler’s treatment of German Jews and the U.S. government’s treatment of American Indians depicts disturbing parallels between these two Holocausts and explores the historical, social and religious roots of America’s own “ethnic cleansing.” The film also examines, through the words and experiences of contemporary Indian people, the long term lasting effects of this on-going destructive process and the possible ramifications for the future of American Indian people in the 21st century.
Highway of Tears
1015
Since the late 1960s, at least eighteen young women — many of them from disadvantaged First Nations communities — have disappeared or been found murdered along the 724-kilometre stretch of Highway 16 in northern British Columbia. None of these cold cases were ever solved until 2012, when a special RCMP investigation was able to link DNA from one of the murder victims to deceased US criminal Bobby Jack Fowler; but this single answer has done little to heal the wounds of Aboriginal communities who have seen dozens of their young women vanish along the “Highway of Tears,” victims not only of murderous predators but of the systemic racism of a federal government that keeps them trapped on impoverished reservations and, as critics charge, evinced little interest in apprehending their killers.
Narrated by Nathan Fillion, Matt Smiley’s hard-hitting documentary Highway of Tears not only movingly relates the personal stories of the victims, but investigates how the legacy of generational poverty, high unemployment and endemic violence in their communities contributed to their tragic fates — and how contemporary First Nations leaders are striving to cure those ills
Indian Horse
2017
Follows the life of Native Canadian Saul Indian Horse as he survives residential school and life amongst the racism of the 1970s. A talented hockey player, Saul must find his own path as he battles stereotypes and alcoholism.
Bones of Crows
2022
Cree code talker Aline Spears survives her traumatic past in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight against systemic starvation, racism and sexual abuse.
Killers of the Flower Moon
2023
When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one – until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
Fancy Dance
2024
Following her sister’s disappearance, a Native American hustler kidnaps her niece from the child’s white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow in hopes of keeping what is left of their family intact.