The Sundance Indigenous film tour kicked off on June 8 and traveled to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Michigan, and California for an 83-minute screening of various short films created by Indigenous filmmakers.
Topics in the films include personal stories about the repatriation of ancestors, truths about waiting for treatment at a local Indian hospital and recalling an endangered language.
Director of the Sundance Institute Indigenous Program Adam Piron said through community partnerships, this tour was free to all audiences. Now that the tour has concluded, the program is available to rent until March 2025.
“So this year was predominantly a mix of films from this past year's festival, as well as the year before. And then after that, it's available to be booked from different art houses or museums, or, you know, anybody that wants to screen it and stuff like that,” Piron said.
A big intention behind this tour was for audiences to see how the relationship between the culture of Indigenous people and cinematic language can work together.
Piron attended a screening in Los Angeles where he witnessed firsthand the connection between audiences and Indigenous artists.
“It's mostly connecting with a lot of these audiences because these films are Indigenous-made films that do center an Indigenous audience. And so like, for me, that's sort of like the measure of the success is just us being able to connect Indigenous audiences with these artists, and just kind of help fulfill that part of why they were made in the first place,” Piron said.
In August, the Sundance Indigenous Program will have an artist intensive in Honolulu, Hawaii, where they will focus on supporting Native Hawaiian filmmakers working in short films.
“And I think that the biggest privilege to combine two things that I'm really passionate about, which is film, and combining that also to my own sort of passion for advocating for Indigenous people, and whatever that might look like. I don't know, where else I'd be able to do what I'm doing here on the scale that I'm able to do that,” Piron said.
