The best John Trudell’s movies

Forrest Taft is an environmental agent who works for the Aegis Oil Company in Alaska. Aegis Oil's corrupt CEO is the kind of person who doesn't care whether or not oil spills into the ocean or onto the land—just as long as it's making money for him.

An FBI man with Sioux background is sent to a reservation to help with a murder investigation, where he has to come to terms with his heritage.

In South Dakota, in an Indian reservation, an old storyteller Indian asks his grandson Shane, who is in trouble owing money to some bad guys, to take his old pony and him to Albuquerque to the great powwow, an Indian meeting. While traveling, Grandpa tells mysterious Indian tales of love, friendship and magic.

Guy Luthan, a British doctor working at a hospital in New York, starts making unwelcome enquiries when the body of a man who died in his emergency room disappears. After the trail leads Luthan to the door of an eminent surgeon at the hospital, Luthan soon finds himself in extreme danger people who want the hospital's secret to remain undiscovered.

The evolution of the depiction of Native Americans in film, from the silent era until today, featuring clips from hundreds of movies and candid interviews with famous directors, writers and actors, Native and non-Native: how their image on the screen transforms the way to understand their history and culture.

Buddy Red Bow is struggling, in the face of persecution, by greedy developers and political in-fighting, to keep his nation on a Montana Cheyenne Reservation financially solvent and independent. Philbert, a simple-minded friend of Buddy's, ardently pursues Native American/First Nation wisdom and lore wherever he can find it--even on Bonanza--in order to earn his warrior name. He's even got his war pony, Protector: a beat-up old wreck of a car. Buddy's sister has been arrested in Santa Fe, and together Buddy and Philbert set off on a road trip to look after her kids and go bail her out. However, Bonnie's arrest has something strange about it as her friend Rabbit points out. As the miles roll by, Philbert's faith challenges Buddy's hard-edged view of the world (and occasional bout of reckless violence), and together they face the realities and dreams of being Cheyenne in the modern-day US as they fight to free Bonnie and her children and elude the Feds.

Filmed in 1993 but never completed due to River Phoenix's death, Dark Blood tells the story of Boy, a young widower living on a nuclear testing site in the desert. Boy is waiting for the end of the world and carves Katchina dolls that supposedly contain magical powers. Boy's solitude is interrupted when a Hollywood jet-set couple who are travelling across the desert become stranded after their car breaks down. The couple are rescued by Boy, who then holds them prisoner because of his desire for the woman and his ambition to create a better world with her.

Young Indian man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents died in a fire in 1976, and Thomas was saved by Arnold. Arnold soon left his family, and Victor hasn't seen his father for 10 years. When Victor hears Arnold has died, Thomas offers him funding for the trip to get Arnold's remains

On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a group of Indians. Although several men were charged with killing the agents, only one, Leonard Peltier, was found guilty. This film describes the events surrounding the shootout and suggests that Peltier was unjustly convicted.

A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances and politics.

Documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history, a little-known story built around the incredible lives and careers of the some of the greatest music legends.

The film threads together four stories, taking us into the life of a stressed-out Mohawk stockbroker in Manhattan; a young Inupiat girl sent to live with her grandmother in Barrow, Alaska; a Navajo gang member who must find his core values in his reservation on the mesas of New Mexico; and a Quechua healer in Peru, attempting to save a sick child. Each story explores what it means to belong to a specific community. A Thousand Roads is a fictional work, produced by National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) to explore the human context of the NMAI’s collections. The film is striking visually, and presents through its beauty and its stories an imaginative entry into knowing about Native people living in the vast indigenous geography that comprises the Americas. Rather than presenting a conventional historical perspective, the film is composed of short contemporary fictions about individuals, grounding them in emotional truths to which an audience can easily relate.

Kili Radio - "Voice of the Lakota Nation" - is broadcast out of a small wooden house that sits isolated on a hill, lost in the vast countryside of South Dakota. It’s a place that’s long forgotten; lying at the crossroads between combat and hope, between the American dream and daily existence on America’s poorest reservation. Yet we find people like Roxanne Two Bulls, who’s trying to start over again on the land of her ancestors; the young DJ Derrick who’s discovering his gift for music; Bruce, the white lawyer who for thirty years has been trying to free a militant who’s been fighting for American Indian rights; and finally John Trudell, an old AIM activist who’s made a career for himself as a musician in Hollywood. Everything converges at Kili Radio. Instead of sending smoke signals the radio station transmits its own signals across a vast and ... (from the webpage)