Rage in the Desert: Tantoo Cardinal on Finding Voice

Festival Honoree Tantoo Cardinal, Cree from northern Alberta

Live from the Agua Caliente Native American Film Fest

First Nations Voices in the Cahuilla Desert Tonight

For the 50,000 children who never came home

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News Exclusive
March 6, 2014

Tantoo Cardinal in Palm Springs
Photo Brenda Norrell

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- "Rage" is not a word that most filmmakers and film festivals are comfortable with. Tantoo Cardinal was not afraid to use the word "rage" tonight. The Agua Caliente Native American Film Festival was not afraid to present a feature film tonight that centered on rage.

Rage is what Tantoo Cardinal felt as a young person in high school. Everywhere she looked, she saw Native people being abused and exploited. That rage fueled her drive, fueled her to find an outlet for that rage. In that quest, she found her voice in acting.

Rage is the message that flows through Moose River Crossing, the feature film tonight at the Agua Caliente Native American Film Festival. It is the rage of young girls and boys in Indian residential schools being raped by principals and priests. It is the rage against the tiny crosses that mark the graves of the 50,000 children in Canada who never came home. It is the rage against the flashbacks of the abuse that take hold of peoples lives and come back like rivers, like floods. It is the rage of scars from leather straps on the back, the rage of looking and seeing those now drowning in addictions, alcohol addiction and sex addiction.

When the drama of First Nations voices and films came to the Cahuilla Desert tonight, there were no fairy tale endings in the cinema tonight.

In Moose River Crossing, by Cree filmmaker Shirley Cheechoo, there is a clarifying voice at the conclusion: The victims of residential school abuse must come together, tell their stories, and share their stories.

There is also this pointed conclusion: Speak the truth, speak one's own truth from Spirit, and this is where the power comes.

Tonight, the voices of the far north came to one of the hottest places in North America, the southern California desert.

Tonight's short films at the Agua Caliente Native American Film Festival featured some of the first films for First Nations that turned the industry around, Tantoo Cardinal told a large crowd tonight that appreciated both the humor and sorrow woven into those early films.

Three short films featured festival honoree Tantoo Cardinal, Cree from northern Alberta, Canada, who spoke of her early days, of both searching and acting. All three films are compelling, weaving complicated issues, and revealing the wide range of Tantoo Cardinal's acting and her own strength.

Blood River

When Tantoo Cardinal was asked what called out to her from those early films, she said it was the filmmakers themselves. Tantoo said Shelley Niro is an amazing artist, and Kent Monkman, Cree, has an incredible sense of humor. Shelley Niro directed Honey Moccasin and Kent Monkman directed Blood River.

In Blood River, Tantoo portrays a white adoptive mother, sporting a blonde wig.

"I think it is hilarious that I'm playing a white woman. It was a laugh," said Tantoo, pointing out that this was a turning of the tables on the whites who were always playing Indians in films.

Blood River, with its humor, also conveys the struggle of an adopted Native child searching for her mother, and the trauma for Indian children growing up in foster homes.

Memory directed by Cedar Sherbet, Kumeyaay, shown tonight, reveals an elderly alcoholic aunt, portrayed by Tantoo, returning for the memorial of a child who has drowned.

The issues of survival -- and the compex issues of family, forgiveness and rebuilding lives -- in the films are set against one underlying reality that Tantoo Cardinal described tonight.

Tantoo said that through their ancestry, Native people knew the truth. "We have known it was about the land."

Whether it is in the United States or Canada, the situation is the same. "It is the same animal," Cardinal said.

"Every government has tried to get rid of treaties, remove us, thin us out."

Now, people are coming together in the fight to protect the water, she said.

"Water is fundamental. If we don't have water, we don't have life," said Tantoo describing the threat of fracking to the water.

As for the rage that fueled her, she said being raised by elderly led her to avoid violence of any kind in the protest movements of the '70s.

As for the exploitation and abuse of Native people all around her, she said she barely made it out of high school, she felt so much rage and was so passionate.

"I heard a voice that each of us has been given a gift." It was then that she began her search, persevering in her quest to discover her own gift. In 1977, she turned down the first role offered because of the dialogue. When they agreed to change it, it was no better. Eventually, they removed all the dialogue.

"I was so happy," she said.

In the films that followed through the years, she portrayed a wide range of characters, including the owner of the Inukshuk Cafe in the off-beat and unpredictable Honey Moccasin, directed by Shelley Niro, and shown tonight.

"The reason I got into acting was to develop a voice."

The voice is not just her own, but an ever-evolving voice for Native people. It is this voice that sounded through the Cahuilla Desert tonight.

The Festival

The Agua Caliente Native American Film Festival is presenting important new Native feature films such as Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope, Dine' language with English subtitles, and Maina starring Tantoo Cardinal. A lecture by Chiricahua Apache Nancy Marie Mithlo, PhD, opened the festival on Tuesday night. Mithlo's talk was "Can You Hear Me? Silence as an Indigenous Representational Strategy in Film."

Richard M. Milanovich, the late chairman of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, was a lover of film and each year attended the Native Film Fest. The Richard M. Milanovich Award for Distinguished Contributions to Indigenous Film establishes in his honor those who have distinguished themselves in Indigenous film.

The 2014 Award will be presented to Tantoo Cardinal on Saturday evening, March 8, during the 8 pm screening.

Indigenous films continue on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Camelot Theaters, beginning at 5 pm each day.

Film schedule: http://www.accmuseum.org/2014-Native-FilmFest

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Fundraising: Here at the Agua Caliente Native American Film Festival

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

The Greyound bus stop is five miles from Palm Springs.
Without warning was dropped off in the desert
in a dust storm, which is in the foreground in the photo.

I've made an extreme effort to get to the Palm Springs, to the Agua Caliente Native American Film Festival, where Tantoo Cardinal is being honored. 
There was a train to bus, then walk to one town and sleep on a couch, then another bus. 
Without warning, the Greyhound bus dropped me off five miles from Palm Springs in a dust storm in the desert. 
So now I'm fundraising on Censored News to be able to stay over tonight and cover this film festival. No media would agree to purchase any articles to support the trip. 
Tantoo is doing vital work globally and has just returned from the Rights of Mother Earth Tribunal in Ecuador.
Please support Censored News on the blog: www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

John Kane, Mohawk: 'Economy? We don't need no stinking economy'

Economy? We Don't Need No Stinking Economy!

By John Karhiio Kane, Mohawk

Censored News

John Kane

I haven't weighed in much on Canada's Bill C-10 issues but in the overall scheme of things it is no different than any of the others on the long list of anti-Native laws, regulations and policies that Canada and the U.S. have attempted to impose on our people and lands for centuries and, of course, this includes their provinces and states, as well. It all boils down to an attempt to control, marginalize and criminalize our people.

It is particularly ironic that participation in a trade industry that has been ours for thousands of years — actually introduced to their ancestors by our ancestors — has been under attack since the moment we began realizing any significant economic gain from it. But the attempt by the U.S. and Canada to deny this inherent right is not the only egregious act by two of the world's biggest hypocrite nations.

Kidnapper, hostage holder and pedophile John Rolfe (d. 1622) of Pocahontas fame took the first steps to bastardize our tobacco by commercializing the product for the European market.

Robert Free 'The UN Game of Charades' Boycott Indigenous World Conference

Robert Free: The UN Game of Charades

BOYCOTT the UN sham World Indigenous Conference!

Robert Free (on left) with Sid Mills Wounded Knee

Robert Free points out that many grassroots frontline veterans have been demanding the UN Indian NGO World Indigenous Conference promoters boycott the sham and not give it the token semblance of credibility. Free, who was among those at the Occupation of Alcatraz and Wounded Knee 1973, said he is glad the move is now towards a united front to boycott the proposed World Indigenous Conference 2014. 
The following letter was written by Free prior to the planning session of the World Conference in Norway, one year ago, and described the high purpose, and what is actually happening at the UN. Sid Mills, Suzette Bridges of the fishing rights wars in the northwest, together with Free, advocated for the boycott. They suggested Free reach out to the other delegates.

By Robert Free
Censored News

Thomas Banyaca

The history of indigenous sovereignty efforts to go the house of mica, the UN, where the nations of the world gather, was led spiritually and physically by Thomas Banyaca, from the Hopi Nation.
Hopi Thomas Banyaca shared prophecy at UN
Banyaca was one of several chosen and directed by the elders to go forth and share a prophecy that foretold of a time when the earth would be under great stress from wrongful living on our mother earth. He was to go to the house of mica and to declare our need to care for our mother earth. His mission was also to declare the sovereignty of indigenous peoples to land and rights to live in harmonious ways with our mother earth, even if the others did not chose to also to live in harmony with our mother earth. His leadership along with others efforts, educated many and helped to create the  many groups to go before the UN. The efforts produced, after 60 years, the Declaration of indigenous rights. The issue still is to recognize these rights with a way of accountability and implementation.
Lack of clear unified voice at UN
All other issues being addressed or brought forth before the UN and the world conference are issues of the symptoms of not having these rights. The core issues of de-colonization, returns of lands, return of wealth by churches, rescinding of the Doctrine of Discovery, control and consent of resource extractions,etc., are not being brought forth in clear strong united actions. 
Crying around for better health, education, etc., from the oppressor colonizers, into the concentration camps of open air ghettos misses the core issue of empowerment and self determination. Self determination enables control of land and resources to provide these needs for ourselves.
The UN Game of Charades
I am not hearing the core issues being articulated strongly and adamantly, rather the crying for help for the symptoms of colonization. This is what, in the long run, allows the UN to dodge the core issues and say they are addressing concerns brought forth from indigenous peoples, namely health, housing, education etc.
The huge bureaucracy of the UN can then say, "Look at all the agencies doing studies and having meeting etc."
Or these NGOs are doing the studies themselves for us (as certain Indian NGOs are getting funded to do studies on our peoples.)
Strong advocates to these core issues are the needed delegates to the world conference and pre-planning meeting in Norway with our Sammi allies. The UNWCIP needs the delegates to re-present the original efforts to the global communities and nations.
We can boycott the world conference (after meeting in Norway with all the indigenous peoples) which  would have a louder impact and more spotlight focused on the token gestures of the UN. It is insulting to see the hard work and hard struggles of so many to go before the UN with so little resources to do the job of representing our peoples aspirations. Expecting us to struggle over decades to submit to their endless bureaucracy to no avail.
We would have more media exposure, for what ever its worth, than to continue to participate in the UN game of charades.

AIM West on Indian Country Today's 'Trash Newspaper'

Yellow Journalism: Boycott 'Trash Newspaper'

By Tony Gonzales
AIM West
Censored News

AIM West at Dept of Justice San Francisco Feb. 27, 2014

Len Foster,

As you are AIM member, Wounded Knee veteran, and a member of the board of director for the NGO International Indian Treaty council (IITC), founded by AIM, (and international political arm of the AIM, and as you being the spiritual advisor to AIM political prisoner Leonard Peltier for over 25 years, and as this dastardly display by the Indian Country Today is deliberately anti-AIM; it comes just days before the 41 year commemoration of Wounded Knee, South Dakota (Feb.27); and orchestrated for print like it was in the New York Times; and timed while thousands of people around the world were preparing vigils and demonstrations for Leonard Peltier of AIM; and demonstrations held in front of US Dept of Justices across the country reminding them of the unsolved 60 murders during 1973-76 known as the "reign of terror" which was under that climate that Leonard was captured, falsely extradited, and later charged and convicted!

I call on you to direct your executive director to write the newspaper editor  (and everyone else to do same) and express words that they are biased and practice yellow journalism unjustifiably so directed at the AIM, hampering Leonard Peltier's release from 38 years in prison, and disregards the achievements across Indian country brought on by AIM activism and the historic stand taken at Wounded Knee 73.

I on behalf of AIM-WEST will say to our friends that we don't need this kind of reporting or illustration, and write also a letter to the editor, and further call on all our friends and supporters to boycott this trash newspaper that glorifies itself to have the bidding (and income) of government forces not compatible with self-determination and the progressive Indigenous struggles but dwells in rumors and kangaroo court decisions intended to destroy a movement of the people.


http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/23/aims-skeletons-closet

Since IITC also prides itself as an organization that supports the release of AIM leader Leonard Peltier, and boast that they brought the UN special rapporteur to visit with Leonard Peltier last January, should be compelled to respond and condemn this type of reporting for it does absolutely nothing to help bring AIM leader Leonard Peltier home.

Thank you, my friend, for your attention to this grave concern,

Antonio Gonzales
AIM-WEST Director
www.aimwest.info

www.aimovement.org