Shining Mountains Film Festival: YOU'RE NO INDIAN

The Shining Mountains Film Festival wrapped up October 18 in Aspen, Colorado. The two-day event organized by the Aspen Indigenous Foundation featured films by Native directors, actors and producers, touching on topics that resonate across Indian country. These are powerful stories. Here’s what part of that looked like through one set of eyes.

You're No Indian poster. (Provided by "You're No Indian," used with permission.)

Shining Mountains Film Festival: The Setup

When I picked up Ryan Flynn, his wife and their daughter at the Aspen airport, the first thing that struck me was the lack of pretense. They were a lovely family, but there was nothing about them that demanded attention or special treatment. As I loaded their bags into the car, they started working on the mystery of installing the car seat they’d brought along for the little one.

This sense of personal humility and practical attention to detail, to what-should-be-done, would be obvious the next evening as Flynn sat on the stage of the Wheeler Opera House, fielding questions about the film he’d directed.

You’re No Indian had just been screened. Audience reception was great, but the mood was hardly celebratory. The film’s topic would not allow it.

The Backstory

The story of Native people in North America is as wide ranging as the people themselves, shaped by environment, language and family structure. All these elements have been rocked since European settlers and influences swept across the continent. Whole populations were impacted by new pathogens, new weapons, displacement from traditional homelands, criminalization of ceremonies and destruction of family relationships via murderous boarding schools. On and on the list goes.

Now, add to that wildly incomplete accounting: disenrollment, the revocation of membership status of individuals or whole families from their tribal communities. Only this time, the perpetrators are people the victims had long thought of as their own kinsmen.

You’re No Indian is a feature-length film that examines disenrollment across Indian country. It has the integrity and confidence to allow voices from both sides to speak, and the courage to raise disturbing questions.

How does unchecked power infect decisions that impact human rights? How does tribal sovereignty balance against the rights of individuals whose entire lives and sense of self are tied to that tribe? And, perhaps most damning, how do casino wealth and human greed play into all this?  Who is hurt, and what might their future look like?

You’ll have to watch the movie. It doesn’t claim to have all the answers; that would violate the modesty of the filmmakers. But it rings a bell that demands attention, and it has a pedigree that ensures that bell is heard far and wide.

The Creatives

Executive Producer Wes Studi brings a lifetime of film and TV accolades, including an Academy Award for his body of work, the first ever for a Native American. As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, his lived experience makes his leadership both personal and professional, and results in a film that speaks to all audiences with the heart to consider it.

Executive Producer/Narrator Tantoo Cardinal is the voice of the film, providing the narration glue that connects the many required speakers and perspectives. She’s an accomplished actor (Killers of the Flower Moon, Dances With Wolves and other well-known projects) who draws on her heritage as a Cree/Nakota/Dene woman to advocate for the dignity of Native people.

Producer Santana Rabang adds authenticity that can’t be counterfeited. As a disenrolled member of the Nooksack tribe, her personal experience is both painful and illuminating. It allows the film to speak for impacted individuals with emotional integrity, sensitivity, gravity and grace.

Other key players included Producer Michael Sammaciccia, production manager for the motion picture Holes, a movie I watched a hundred times with my kids. Leading the post-production team for You’re No Indian, he crafts years of interview footage, visuals and sound clips into a coherent, compelling story. Various “Anonymous Producers” are credited with providing access and cultural input, shaping the core principles of the film. Their contributions are critical, but they remain unnamed for fear of retaliation.

And then there’s the director: Ryan Flynn. He’s at the festival, so now we head back to the mountains.

Ryan Flynn at the Wheeler Opera House, Aspen, Colorado, fielding audience questions after screening his film: You're No Indian. (Joe Center/Spare Jackets Media)

Shining Mountains Film Festival: On Stage

Flynn is the only non-Native film director in attendance. He’s of Irish descent and was drawn to the study of disenrollment as a human rights issue.

Since he is not Indigenous and has no personal stake in the tribal membership question, some have complained that his role might diminish the significance of the film. That position ignores his commitment to faithful storytelling; his years of connecting with people impacted by disenrollment, regardless of their individual tribal connections; and the value of a neutral voice in creating an objective, powerful documentary.

And he’s kind, connecting with Native people who can share their own stories their own way. He’s a facilitator, and that was on display at the festival. After a brief introduction, he gave the stage to Dr. Vivian Delgado, a Pascua Yaqui scholar and activist, who welcomed the audience and said a prayer in her sacred language. Then Steve Wikviya LaRance, a Hopi silver artisan, played a Native flute, settling the spirits in the room for the experience that followed.

Steve Wikviya LaRance plays a Native flute, opening the final session of the Shining Mountains Film Festival, Aspen, Colorado. (Joe Center/Spare Jackets Media)

You’re No Indian is a professionally produced film. At times it’s beautiful, sharing something of the pageantry of Native cultures and the landscapes that shape them. Other times it’s didactic, laying the necessary historical framework for the central conflict: greed versus Native identity and affiliation. It’s like watching a family tear itself apart fighting over an inheritance. But it’s always sensitive and artistic. And, like many pieces of art, it can break your heart.

Many say that You’re No Indian is “not just a movie — it’s a movement.” If that’s true, then the inspiration propelling the movement is the people severed from their roots by disenrollment. It’s not some lofty sermon delivered by the director. Instead, it’s personal stories of eviction from homes, disinterment of deceased relatives and betrayal. Flynn simply shares those stories.

This film advocates for human rights. It introduces viewers to a civil war many might never have known was raging around them. It longs for dying languages and ceremonies that could unite all people. It shouts out loud for those whose voices break from pain, wondering where their children will find a home, community, belonging, heritage and a tribe to call their own.

-Joe Center

Joe Center is a photographer and writer based out of Houston, Texas.