The Business of Fancydancing
Dir: Sherman Alexie / 2002 / 103 min / Drama
DVD: PN1997.2 .B87 2003
“Seymour Polatkin is a successful, gay Native American poet who confronts his past when he returns to his childhood home on the reservation to attend the funeral of a friend.”
DVD Special features: audio commentary with writer-director [Sherman Alexie] and actor Evan Adams; deleted scenes; Sherman’s sandbox: behind the scenes; production stills gallery; theatrical trailers; weblinks.
Also available:
Sherman Alexie’s original poems and short stories
The Business of Fancydancing PS3551.L35774 B87 1991
Dance to Miss Chief
Dir: Kent Monkman / 2010 / 5 min / Experimental
Watch Online / DVD: PN1995.9.I48 D36 2010
Renowned Canadian indigenous artist, Kent Monkman, explores two-spirit and indigenous identity in this mix of dance and found footage from German westerns.
Deep Inside Clint Star
Dir: Clint Alberta / 1999 / 89 min / Documentary
Watch online / DVD: E78 .C2 D44 1998b
Indigenous filmmaker, Clint Alberta, takes on the persona of “Clint Star” to interview several members of the First Nations and Métis community, in order to explore “issues of identity, sexuality and intimacy, while retaining the creative and playful style of a director who is not afraid of turning the camera on himself”.
Drunktown’s Finest
Dir: Sydney Freeland / 2014 / 93 min / Drama
DVD: PN1997.2 .D786 2016
Drama about three Navajo youth dealing with various hardships that come from living on a reservation. “On a beautifully desolate Navajo reservation in New Mexico, three young people – a college-bound, devout Christian; a rebellious and angry father-to-be; and a promiscuous but gorgeous transsexual – search for love and acceptance.”
Two-spirited
Dir: Sharon A. Desjarlais / 2008 / 54 min / Documentary
Watch Online / DVD (First Stories Vol. 3): PN1998.2 .F57 2008
“Presents an empowering story of an encounter with prejudice. Geeyo has competed as a jingle dress dancer, a category normally reserved for women. During a powwow, an elder discovers that Geeyo is a man and revokes his championship. He stops dancing, but six years later, makes a triumphant return to the powwow arena.”
DVD part of First Stories Vol. III, an indigenous filmmaker compilation.
Niish Manidoowag
(Two-Spirited Beings)
Debbie S. Mishibinijima / 2017 / 5 min / Documentary
Watch Online
“Four youth travel Bebamikawe Trail on Wiikwemkoong Unceded First Nation Territory. Two of the youths are Two Spirited and discuss the confrontations and acceptance that they have encountered within their community and how it has affected their ability to experience and learn their culture.”
Honey Moccasin
Dir: Shelley Niro / 1998 / 47 min / Comedy musical
Watch Online
An indigenous comedy/thriller/musical that “investigates the authenticity, cultural identity, and the articulation of modern Native American experience in cinematic language and pop culture.”
Kumu Hina: the true meaning of aloha
Dir: Dean Hamer / 2014 / 77 min / Documentary
Watch online / DVD: GN671 .H3 K85 2014
“Examines the struggle to maintain Pacific Islander culture and values within westernized modern day Hawaii through the eyes of a native Hawaiian who is both a mahu (transgender woman) and kumu (teacher, cultural practitioner, and community leader).”
Two Soft Things, Two Hard Things
Dir: Mark Kenneth Woods & Michael Yerxa / 2016 / 72 min / Documentary
Watch Online / DVD: E99.E7 T9 2016
A celebration of LGBTQ2+ community pride in Nunavut provides the backdrop for a discussion of queer/two-spirit indigenous traditions and lives.
Two Spirits
Dir: Lydia Nibley / 2009 / 54 min / Documentary
DVD: E99 .N3 T96 2010
“Examines the role of two-spirit people in the Navajo culture in the context of the story of a gay youth named Fred Martinez, a nádleehí or male-bodied person with a feminine essence, who was murdered in a hate-crime.”
DVD Special features: scene selection, Kids like Fred, The changing ones, Father figures, trailer.
Fire Song
Dir: Adam Garnet Jones / 2015 / 96 min / Drama
DVD: PN1997.2 .F573 2016
Shane is a gay Anishinaabe teenager in Northern Ontario, struggling to support his family after his sister’s suicide. Originally Shane planned to go away to college in the fall, and he had been trying to convince his secret boyfriend to come with him. Now he is torn between responsibilities at home and the promise of freedom calling from the city.
Leave a Reply