Honoring Indigenous Futures with Storytelling is a program of short documentary films on water, land, and Indigenous sovereignty which will bring viewers from the Lakota Standing Rock Reservation to the Achuar community of Wachirpas in the Amazon. This restorative screening event co-curated by the Sweet Water Cultural Center and Truth 2 Power will conclude with a community conversation on how we can live with honor to the earth.

Protection Not Protest: The People of Standing Rock (25 min.) 

In 2016 the Lakota people of the Standing Rock Reservation had to defend their watershed and sacred burial sites from an invading oil company. This short and impactful film by Academy Award winner Jonathan Demme listens to the voices of the water protectors urging us to defend the sacred.

The Community of the River Wachirpas (15 min.)

Viewers are brought into the heart of the Amazon, where oil contamination is risking the lives and culture of an Achuar community living on the Wachirpas River. 

Community Conversation (50 min.)

A Conversation with Brooklyn Demme and Ramapough Lenape elder Debbie DeFreese will follow the screening. Film, activism, mentorship and building community at home and abroad will be discussed.