As Ringo Starr once opined, “You got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues.”
Hokay, so he’s hardly an authority being  a white dude from Liverpool, but the sentiment is well taken. The blues is not pretty. The blues is badass. The blues is a music that reverberates from the swamps of […]

First Nations Film and Video Festival First Steps Native Film Series
Step By Step, Day By Day Log By Ernest M. Whiteman III 

Day One: November 6, 2007 Illinois State Museum—Chicago Gallery Thompson Center Downtown Chicago Stepping out alone, on my own, walking the streets of downtown, the loop, the noise, the clatter, the […]

Marcel Petit is the Metis filmmaker, actor, photographer and all around amazing dude whose powerful film, Hookers: A Documentary is scheduled to be released this spring. As his gutsy film will demonstrate, Marcel is also fearlessly honest in saying what he thinks and thinking about what he says, especially when it comes to the importance of Native artists […]

By Rod Pocowatchit 

In the film world, it can pay off to be nice.
Take Kevin   Willmott, for instance. Film professor at the University of  Kansas. Award-winning director. Sundance Film Festival alum. And really nice guy.
I had previously met him during a Kansas Film Commission event (they make a presentation every year during Kansas Legislative […]

By Jeff Bear  

STAND UP! Stand up for your rights! Today I smoke to Bob Marley. Yesterday a friend of mine called me to say that a former APTN reporter, the acolyte of an erstwhile friend, was overheard at a cocktail party pouring vitriol over one of my first independent documentaries. This made […]

The Authorship of Expertise A Reflection on Native Self-representation in Movies and Elsewhere
By Ernest M. Whiteman III 
N for Native “In the Great American Indian Novel “When it is finally written “All of the white people will be Indians “And all of the Indians will be ghosts”                                     Sherman Alexie 
No more rehearsals. The curtain now rises. […]

By Ernest M. Whiteman III
 
I. Getting a “Real” Job
And some times is seen, a strange spot in the sky/ A human being that was given to fly                                                                    ~Eddie Vedder, 1996
It is a tiring thing to make your ambitions a reality. It takes a lot out of you. You question yourself everyday whether or […]

Rod Pocowatchit is many things—a journalist, dancer, actor and filmmaker. In his typically self-effacing style, he shares with us the joys and sorrows of an emerging director traveling the film festival trail. It ain't easy. And though he refers to himself "a bomb,"  we beg to differ; Rod is definitely "da' bomb." 
Read on and you'll see […]

Jeff Bear (Maliseet) is one of Canada's leading factual storytellers as a producer, director and writer for network television. His company, Urban Rez Productions, most recently developed the APTN documentary series Storytellers in Motion about the contributions Aboriginals have made in the visual arts of TV, film and storytelling. As you will see, he isn’t afraid […]

By Rob Schmidt

What’s black and white and red all over? 
If you answered Native Americans in the funny pages, you’re right. 
On March 10, the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis hosted a program on “Native American Portrayals in Comics.”  Fans came from miles around to see the best and worst of Indian comics and hear industry […]