A scene from the documentary "Sisters Rising," screening at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts as part of the Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival, Nov. 19-21. A virtual version runs Nov. 20-26. Tickets are $10 to $75. (Image courtesy Pocahontas Reframed)
This month, the Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival is back, with in-person and virtual options. Last year, restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic led the festival to screen films exclusively online. This year’s hybrid model is something new for the 5-year-old festival, which includes full-length films, documentaries and shorts.
“We try to include a good mix of all three,” says Brad Brown, the festival’s director and a member of Virginia's Pamunkey tribe.
Some of the films will be shown at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts from Friday, Nov. 19, through Sunday, Nov. 21, while the virtual component of the festival runs online from Nov. 20-26.
The thing that ties the films together, says Brown, is that they are all by or about Native Americans, First Nations people from Canada or Indigenous people in Mexico. He says he’s particularly excited about “Sisters Rising,” a documentary being screened on Nov. 21. The film centers on a group of Native American women working to expose men who assault women on reservations and attempt to avoid prosecution by exploiting “gaps in tribal jurisdictional authority,” according to the film’s website.
Brown says a problem Native Americans face is the disappearance of Native women from their communities and the lack of effort directed to finding them. Indigenous activists are asking, for example, why the disappearance of Gabby Petito — a white woman — dominated the news cycle in September even as hundreds of Indigenous women remain missing without similar uproar.
“It's a real problem,” Brown says. “Hundreds and hundreds of Native women have disappeared and been murdered and raped.”
What often happens, Brown explains, is that non-Native people enter reservation land and commit crimes against Native women. They remain unsought by non-Native police, because the crime happened on a reservation, but can’t be arrested by tribal police because they don’t have jurisdiction.
Although some of the films deal with serious issues like these, the festival covers a range of subjects, including short films and clips by comedian Joey Clift; “From Earth to Sky,” a documentary focusing on contemporary Native architects; the documentary short “Poteet,” which outlines the story of Native artist Poteet Victory; and “Coapan en Espera,” a documentary that explores a diasporic community from Cholula, Puebla, Mexico.
Brown says that the festival has expanded over the years. When it began, he solicited filmmakers to submit films for consideration, but this year he says that he received more than 150 submissions.
“I’ve seen the audience grow as well,” says Shelley Niro, among the filmmakers Brown sought for earlier festivals. This year, Niro, who now serves on the festival’s board of directors, will host a forum with photographer and curator Darlene Naponse and director Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie about how the environment of their youth has affected their work.
Niro says she’s excited to see other filmmakers and actors she’s gotten to know at the festival, as well as audiences who are coming to see films by and about Native Americans.
“It’s a community,” she says, “and if you get to see the community every year, it builds a fellowship.”
