School of American and Global Studies World Languages and Cultures Film Festival:
Co-Hosted by the School of American & Global Studies, SDSU Connect and Wokini
Many thanks to the South Dakota Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities for their generous support of the SDSU School of American and Global Studies Word Languages and Cultures Film Festival.
Click the dates and titles below for more information
Jon M. Chu, Lin-Manuel Miranda / United States / 2021 / 143 MIN
SDSU Campus, Founders Recital Hall, Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center
6 p.m. Food Trucks
7 p.m. Film Screening
An exuberant musical and visual feast created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, In the Heights, is a love letter to the Washington Heights neighborhood and an homage to the diverse Latinx communities of Upper Manhattan.
The scent of warm coffee hangs in the air just outside of the 181st St. subway stop, where a kaleidoscope of dreams rallies a vibrant and tight-knit community. At the intersection of it all is a likable and magnetic bodega owner Usnavi, who hopes, imagines and sings about a better life. For him, the dream is not only to return to the happy Dominican Republic of his childhood but also, to finally ask the intimidating Vanessa out on a date. An aspiring fashion designer, Vanessa dreams of leaving her dead-end beauty salon job and moving downtown to pursue her passionate career. Smart college student Nina yearns to reinstate her identity as a Latina on the heels of her dispiriting year at the white-dominant Stanford. Ultimately, Usnavi and the residents of the close-knit neighborhood get a dose of what it means to be home.
Catherine Bainbridge, Jeremiah Hayes, & Neil Diamond / Canada / 2010 / 85 MIN
SDSU Campus, Founders Recital Hall, Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center
6 p.m. Food Trucks
7 p.m. Film Screening
Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond takes a look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of North American Natives through a century of cinema. Traveling through the heartland of America, and into the Canadian North, Diamond looks at how the myth of “the Injun” has influenced the world’s understanding — and misunderstanding — of Natives. Reel Injun traces the evolution of cinema’s depiction of Native people from the silent film era to today, with clips from hundreds of classic and recent Hollywood movies, and candid interviews with celebrated Native and non-Native film celebrities, activists, film critics and historians.
Diamond meets with Clint Eastwood (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; A Fistful of Dollars; Unforgiven) at his studios in Burbank, California, where the film legend discusses the evolution of the image of Indians in Westerns and what cowboy-and-Indian myths mean to America. Reel Injun also hears from legendary Native American activists John Trudell, Russell Means and Sacheen Littlefeather.
Celebrities featured in Reel Injun include Robbie Robertson, the half-Jewish, half-Mohawk musician and soundtrack composer (Raging Bull, Casino, Gangs of New York); Cherokee actor Wes Studi (Last of the Mohicans, Geronimo), filmmakers Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man) and Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals); and acclaimed Native actors Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves, Thunderheart) and Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, Clint Eastwood’s Flags of our Fathers). Diamond also travels North to the remote Nunavut town of Igloolik (population: 1,500) to interview Zacharias Kunuk, director of the Caméra d’or-winning The Fast Runner.
Diamond takes the audience on a journey across America to some of cinema’s most iconic landscapes, including Monument Valley, the setting for Hollywood’s greatest Westerns and the Black Hills of South Dakota, home to Crazy Horse and countless movie legends. It’s a loving look at cinema through the eyes of the people who appeared in its very first flickering images and have survived to tell their stories in their own way.
Paula Palacios / Spain / 2020 / 81 MIN
SDSU Connect @ The State Theatre
6 p.m. Doors open for a complimentary drink and popcorn
6:30 p.m. Film Screening
7:45 p.m. Panel Discussion w/Immigrant & Refugee Advocates & Community Leaders
Thousands of people risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea every year in an attempt to reach the European shores. In her new film, renowned documentarian Paula Palacios sheds light on the urgent migratory crisis taking place today.
While a mysterious voice coming from the depths of the sea reads letters written by mothers to their children, Drowning Letters follows a rescue ship of the Spanish NGO Open Arms as it embarks on a dramatic mission to save the lives of 550 people stranded in international waters. The film also takes us aboard a Libyan Coast Guard military ship and shows us the most dangerous place in the world, Libya, where human beings are abused and enslaved.
Featuring unprecedented access and must-see images, Drowning Letters is an urgent and necessary film to understand one of the most tragic chapters in contemporary history.
Jeff Barnaby / Canada / 2019 / 96 MIN
SDSU Connect @ The Orpheum Theatre
3-4:30 pm Keynote by Kim Tallbear on identity/genetic ancestry/blood quantum
6:30-7:30 p.m. Panel Discussion with the Actors [Michael Greyeyes And Gary Farmer]
7:45 p.m. Film Screening
Blood Quantum is a 2019 Canadian horror film written, directed, and edited by Jeff Barnaby and starring Michael Greyeyes, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Forrest Goodluck, Kiowa Gordon, Brandon Oakes, Olivia Scriven, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs and Gary Farmer. The film depicts the effects of a zombie uprising on a First Nations reserve whose residents are immune to contracting the plague because of their indigenous heritage but must still cope with the consequences of its effects on the world around them, including white refugees seeking shelter on the reserve.
New York African Film Festival
- Ruthan Abul Ajak / South Sudan, Uganda, South Africa / 2019 / 12 minutes
- Appreciation Tomisin Adepeju / United Kingdom, Nigeria / 2019 / 14 minutes
- Al-Sit Suzannah Mirghani / Sudan, Qatar / 2020 / 20 minutes
SDSU Connect @ The State Theatre
6 p.m. Doors open for a complimentary drink and popcorn
6:30 p.m. Film Screening
Ruthan In this meditation on migration, loss of language and the transcendence of reimagined forms of communication, filmmaker Abul Ajak explores how cultural identities are not fixed but always in transition through her relationship with her grandmothers.
Appreciation When an African Pentecostal pastor in London undergoes a life-changing event, she questions everything she believes in.
TrailerAl-Sit In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, 15-year-old Nafisa has a crush on Babiker, but her parents have arranged her marriage to Nadir, a young Sudanese businessman living abroad. Nafisa’s grandmother Al-Sit, the powerful village matriarch, has her own plans for Nafisa's future. But can Nafisa choose for herself?
Deborah Anderson / Pine Ridge Indian Reservation / 2022
Rapid City – Times and location TBD
Panel Discussion w/Producers
Film Screening
An ancient, Native, matriarchal society has been upended by centuries of genocide and colonialism. This has resulted in culturally sabotaged and isolated communities that are in a constant struggle to save what remains of their sacred identity. The Lakota women living on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian Reservations in South Dakota are rising up against the forces that continue to suppress them. By preserving and protecting their ancestral values and wisdom, they provide a source of hope to their people.
With exclusive access to the lives of 9 women, ranging in age from 10 to 98, we explore powerful testimonials of loss and survival as we gain insight into the experience of a modern-day Indigenous American living on an Indian Reservation. Gripping historical accounts and startling timely statistics guide viewers down the path that has led to these present-day conditions.
Sterlin Harjo / United States / 2007 / 81 MIN
SDSU Campus, Founders Recital Hall, Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center
6 p.m. Food Trucks
7 p.m. Film Screening
After his father's untimely suicide, disillusioned young Cufe leaves his home on a Native American reservation in search of a more fulfilling life.