Documentary | Directed by Willow O'Feral and Brad Heck | 2020 | USA | English | 59 min.
Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault than all other American women. 1 in 3 Native women report having been raped during her lifetime and 86% of the offenses are committed by non-Native men. Sisters Rising follows six women who refuse to let this pattern of violence continue in the shadows: a tribal cop in the midst of the North Dakota oil boom, an attorney fighting to overturn restrictions on tribal sovereignty, a teacher of Indigenous women’s self-defense, grassroots advocates working to influence legislative change, and the author of the first anti-sex trafficking code to be introduced to a reservation’s tribal court. Their stories shine an unflinching light on righting injustice on both an individual and systemic level. Sisters Rising is an urgent call to action, a gorgeous portrait of women acting in solidarity, and a demand for tribal sovereignty and self- determination as the necessary step towards ending violence against Indigenous women in the United States.
“We are on the frontlines of an ongoing legacy of violent colonization, and it is vitally important that the world see and hear us.” Jaida Grey Eagle, Co-producer
Documentary | Directed by Katsitsionni Fox | 2020 | USA | English | 27 min.
WITHOUT A WHISPER - KONNON:KWE uncovers the hidden history of the profound influence Indigenous women had on the beginnings of the women’s rights movement in the United States.
Before the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls in 1848, European colonial women lacked even the most basic rights, while Haudenosaunee women had a potent political and spiritual voice and authority in all aspects of their lives. The contact that the early suffragists had with Haudenosaunee women in New York state shaped their thinking and had a vital impact on their struggle for equality that is taken for granted today. The film follows Mohawk Bear Clan Mother Louise Herne and Professor Sally Roesch Wagner as they seek to correct the historical narrative about the origins of women’s rights in the United States.
This program is co-presented by the Roxbury International Film Festival.