Films Will Be Available To Stream On Demand for Two Weeks
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian returns with the online Native Cinema Showcase, celebrating Indigenous filmmakers of the Western Hemisphere. All films are available on demand beginning Friday, Nov. 13, 5 p.m. ET, through Friday, Nov. 27, 5 p.m. ET. With the exception of Remaining Native, all films are available to view worldwide.
An annual celebration of the best of Indigenous film, the Native Cinema Showcase includes documentaries, features, animations and short-format films by Indigenous filmmakers from across the Western Hemisphere and Arctic. This year’s showcase includes four feature films and 10 short films. Represented in the lineup are five countries (Canada, Guatemala, Mexico, Uruguay and the U.S.) and six languages (Chatino, Chuukese, Dené, Inuktitut, K’iche’ and Numu).
Native Cinema Showcase received support from The Walt Disney Company.
Feature Films
La Raya
(Mexico, 2024, 80 min.)
Director: Yolanda Cruz (Chatino)
Spanish and Chatino with English subtitles
La Raya is a coming-of-age story set in a secluded Oaxacan mountain village, where the sudden, magical arrival of a refrigerator upends the life of a clever young girl named Sotera. Spotting an opportunity, Sotera tries to sell the anomaly, only for the fridge to begin revealing unearthly apparitions to the community. Against the backdrop of these local wonders, Sotera confronts a deeply personal dilemma: her impending journey to join her mother in the United States. Ultimately, she must decide if her heart belongs in the American dream or the mystical roots of her hometown.
Medicine Ball
(USA, 2026, 80 min.)
Director: Leya Hale (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota/Diné)
Medicine Ball follows Native college athletes Lexus Redthunder and Leroy Staples Fairbanks IV as they navigate college life and basketball at the University of Minnesota Morris, located on the site of a former Native boarding school. Their journey reveals how basketball became a powerful symbol of resilience, hope and cultural pride in Native communities.
Remaining Native
(USA, 2025, 87 min.)
Director: Paige Bethmann (Haudenosaunee)
Ku Stevens is a remarkably talented high school runner torn between two worlds: One involves the demands of an elite, individualistic sport and the other the deeply rooted communal values of his Nevada Paiute Reservation. Without a coach, team or scouts, his dream of earning a running scholarship feels out of reach. But when the tragic discovery of thousands of undocumented graves of Native American children makes global headlines, Ku’s personal history takes center stage. His great-grandfather had escaped an Indian boarding school at just 8 years old, surviving by running away on foot. In a powerful act of remembrance, Ku decides to retrace that grueling 50-mile escape route. His journey concludes at the former boarding school’s cemetery, where he brings people together to honor and mourn the young lives lost there.
Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband)
(Canada, 2025, 100 min.)
Director: Zacharias Kunuk (Inuk)
Inuktitut with English subtitles
Content advisory: contains scenes of physical violence
In 2000 BCE Igloolik, Nunavut, the lives of star-crossed teenage lovers Kaujak and Sapa are irrevocably changed. Promised to each other since birth, their bond is shattered when Kaujak’s father dies and her mother marries a man from a distant camp. The promise of a better future turns into a desperate struggle as Kaujak is besieged by aggressive suitors backed by a powerful, evil shaman. Despite the pressure, Kaujak holds fast to her heart, resisting all attempts to claim her and clinging to the hope that Sapa will return to make good on their childhood pledge.
Short Films
Becoming Buffalo
(USA, 2025, 25 min.)
Director: Montana Cypress (Miccosukee)
This film profiles Miccosukee tribal leader Buffalo Tiger who led an 11-member Miccosukee delegation to Cuba amid Cold War tensions.
Deneege Leł Ghu Kk’ots’eedeneeyh Te Heł Hoozoonh Ts’e Denots’edeneeyh/We Get Better When We Tan Moose Hides
(USA, 2026, 5 min.)
Director: Brittany Woods-Orrison (Koyukon Dené)
Dené with English subtitles
Content advisory: contains scenes of hunting, trapping, and preparing of animals
The tradition of tanning hides with brains was once practiced by every Dené person in Alaska. An art that was nearly lost by assimilation, Kathleen Hildebrand works with a group of Dené women at her urban backyard hide camp in the heart of Chen’o (Fairbanks) to revive this tradition.
Do You Speak Paiute?
(USA, 2025, 4 min.)
Director: Taylor Uchytil (Agai Dicutta Walker River Paiute)
Numu and English with English subtitles
The filmmaker explores how her family and community preserve cultural knowledge amid the challenges of language revitalization.
Iikaiksimatsa’pao’p: Grateful To Be on the Land
(Canada, 2025, 13 min.)
Director: Trevor Solway (Blackfoot)
This film follows Cassie Ayoungman, founder of Soul of Miistaki and member of the Siksika Nation, on her journey to bring the healing power of the mountains to those within her community. Determined to break down barriers to climbing, she integrates Indigenous teachings and land-based learning into climbing clinics. In the process, she raises questions about representation, builds community and redefines what it means to be on the land.
Legend of Fry-Roti: Rise of the Dough
(USA, 2025, 9 min.)
Director: Sabrina Saleha (Navajo/Bengali)
When her Navajo and Bengali aunties clash in an epic culinary feud, one niece must blend her dual heritages to cook up her own sense of identity.
Redbird
(USA, 2024, 13 min.)
Director: Emma Barrow (Cherokee Nation)
English and Cherokee with English subtitles
A Cherokee woman fights to protect her niece from adoption by her white grandparents as she reckons with feeling distant from her own culture.
Saq Nikté y El Espíritu de la Máscara/Saq Nikté and the Spirit of the Mask
(Guatemala/Uruguay, 2025, 5 min.)
Director: Ester Weiner (Mayan)
K’iche’ with English subtitles
In a forgotten community, an artisan girl puts an old K’iche’ invocation to the test and summons a curious spirit into the world.
The Arrangements
(USA, 2025, 15 min.)
Director: Sonny Ganaden
English and Chuukese with English subtitles
In Hawaiʻi, three Micronesian boys have just one day to prepare for a friend’s funeral—and find the secret treasure he left behind.
Tule
(USA, 2024, 4 min.)
Director: Jocelyn Garcia (Pomo/Chicana)
Through poetic reflections on conversations with her elders, a modern Pomo girl finds her voice and a sense of purpose in advocating for Clear Lake’s endangered tule plant.
Twisted Braid
(USA, 2025, 5 min.)
Director: Ricky-Thomas Serikawa (Native Hawaiian)
Named for the Hawaiian word meaning “to braid,” Hilo is more than a place on Hawaiʻi Island—it is a community tightly woven together and deeply rooted in the earth. Through poetry, this work explores how a shared devotion to culture, creativity and collective care can kindle light in a world that grows increasingly vast and distant.
About the Museum
In partnership with Native peoples and their allies, the National Museum of the American Indian fosters a richer shared human experience through a more informed understanding of Native peoples. For additional information, including hours and directions, visit AmericanIndian.si.edu. Follow the museum via social media @SmithsonianNMAI.