Wayfinders Circle Niitsitapi
Niitsitapi (The Real People)
2024 | Documentary Short | 14 MIN.
Directed by Bryan Gunnar Cole
“Niitstitapi” (The Real People) journeys across the vast ancestral territory of The Blackfoot Confederacy – an ancient alliance of Blackfoot speaking people bound together by land, language, and culture.
In the North America continental divide, Niitsitapi reveals the beginning of the traditional territory of The Blackfoot Confederacy, an ancient alliance of Blackfoot people who, along with the Buffalo, have always inhabited a vast area of mountains, rivers, lakes, and short grass prairie that stretches from the Rocky Mountains into the great plains. Today, the Blackfoot Confederacy is comprised of the Sitsika Nation, Kainai Nation, and Piikani Nation in Canada, and the Blackfeet Nation in the US. Despite being forced onto reserves and compelled to assimilate in bleak residential schools during the 19th and 20th centuries, the Niitstitapi from these Blackfoot Confederacy communities all share the same language and culture and cooperate to protect and preserve their land and way of life. Through the eyes of members of each of the four bands, Niitstitapi explores themes of cultural revival and permanence and how those values are practiced in daily life.
Directors’ Statement
As Sr. Producer of the Wayfinders Circle films, I’ve had the immense privilege to work on all of the films in the series; each with their unique story and point of view. While each production began as conversations with and among Wayfinders Circle Members and Conveners, Niitsitapi is unique because the film itself unfolds like a conversation. Over emails, zoom meetings, phone calls and visits to Blackfoot territory, we collaborated with knowledge keepers in the film to tell a simple story about the ancient alliance of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the devastating effects of colonialism, and the land, language, and culture that sustains the Blackfoot way of life now and into the future.
Bryan Gunnar
Bryan Gunnar Cole is a filmmaker, creative director, and educator with over 25 years of experience in film, television, and digital media. As a filmmaker, his work in both narrative and documentary film has premiered theatrically, screened in festivals worldwide, broadcast on premium cable networks and streamed on all major platforms. His commercial work includes Spots and Premium Content for national and regional clients. As an educator, he was most recently Associate Professor, Film, TV, and Digital Media and Director of Production of the MFA film program at the University of Georgia. He earned his BA in Film Studies from Yale University and his MFA in Film and TV from New York University. He is currently Senior Producer and Director of Production (interim) at Nia Tero.
Tyson Running Wolf
Tyson Running Wolf (Blackfeet Nation) is the co-founder of the non profit Blackfeet Eco Knowledge, a member of the sacred Horns Society, and cultural knowledge keeper. He is a Montana State Representative from the 16th district including Browning and Cut Bank, Montana.
Lona Running Wolf
Lona Running Wolf (Blackfeet, Haida, Little Shell Cree) is the co-founder of the non-profit Blackfeet Eco Knowledge, an educator and advocate for Native American students and the power of cultural revitalization.
Rose Fox
Rose Fox (Kainai Nation) is the leader of the Mototiks sacred society, a knowledge keeper, and fluent Blackfoot speaker. Rose is a Blackfoot youth advocate and active in the Kainai High School as an elder and mentor.
Jonathon Red Gun
Jonathon Red Gun (Siksika) is the disability employment coordinator for Community Futures Treaty Seven. Mr. Red Gun has facilitated a number of workshops in the wellness stream, specifically, for those who are impacted by the Residential School legacy, and its intergenerational trauma. He now continues to use his wellness training, social work and judicial background to advocate for First Nations persons with a disability.
(World Premiere) American Museum of Natural History / Margareth Mead Film Festival
Date: September 23rd 2024
Location: New York City, NY
Here you can download the press notes, containing comprehensive information and insights into the making of the film, the people involved, images, contact and other information for press.
The Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) is composed of the Kainai (Blood), Piikani (Piegan), Siksika (Blackfoot), and Amskapii Piikuni (Blackfeet) Nations. Since time immemorial, the Siksikaitsitapi people have lived in a territory that stretches from the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta and Saskatchewan to the Yellowstone River in the state of Montana, from the Continental Divide in the west to the Great Sand Hills in the province now known as Saskatchewan. The settler colonial imposed reserves in Canada and U.S. total nearly 1 million hectares but represent a small fraction of the land in which Blackfoot culture, language, and livelihoods have historically been rooted.
The Blackfoot Confederacy shares a rich storehouse of knowledge and inspiring initiatives to recover and sustain traditions, language and reciprocal relationships with land well beyond their official boundaries. In the U.S. the Blackfeet have waged a decades-long battle to prohibit gas drilling in sacred lands in the Badger-Two Medicine, a region controlled by the U.S. Forest Service just southwest of the Blackfeet Reservation. Now they are working to restore and bring bison back to another sacred place, around Yellow Mountain and Chief Mountain, adjacent to Glacier National Park.
Nitsiitupiittupyapii (Blackfoot lifeways) are being upheld by a diversity of leaders. Canadian Blackfoot members have helped their fellow Blackfeet in U.S. reestablish traditional societies, such as the Buffalo Bull Children Horn Society, which carry knowledge, songs, prayers, stories that were nearly lost due to a century of government suppression. Meanwhile, the Blackfeet Community College and Cuts Wood School, promote language instruction; BCC has a formal academic track in Piikani Studies.
To learn more about and connect with the Blackfeet Eco Knowledge, click HERE.
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