Wiping The Tears of Seven Generations | The Peyote Road | The Red Road To Sobriety | Red Road Video Talking Circle | Your Humble Serpent | A Seat At The Table
“Gary Rhine has made another fine film in defense of the religious traditions
of Native Americans. Setting this one in the context of a religious convention
in South Africa makes the case of our own native people particularly egregious
and particularly poignant. They are recognized the world over as keepers of a
vital piece of the Creator's original orders, and yet regarded as little more
than squatters at home. Gary's film features fine footage, impressive interviews,
and once again, gives a voice to the voiceless”.
PETER COYOTE
“A Seat At The Table is a valuable and insightful film about a too long overlooked topic, the right of Native American people to have their sacred sites and practices honored and protected. Let's hope it gets shown far and wide, enough to bring about a real shift in policy and consciousness”.
BONNIE RAITT
“A powerful testimony to the difficult attempts of Native Americans to faithfully practice their traditional religions in the context of conventional North American culture. This is a must see for anyone interested in the religion and culture interface, as it is for anyone interested in the continued oppression of Native peoples by the dominant cultural ideology”.
DAVID L. MILLER,
Watson-Ledden Professor of Religion, Emeritus, Syracuse University, and Core Faculty Member in Mythological Studies (retired), Pacifica Graduate Institute
“A welcome overture by Native religious practitioners to demonstrate to the other religions the nature of the longstanding traditions whereby our people achieved a powerful relationship with the mysterious power that creates, sustains and guides our lives. Religions represent insights and experiences rather than masses of followers and while many religious traditions encourage the development of the individual, the native religions, perhaps more than any others, stimulate the highest level of maturity and achievement; that of community responsibility. For that reason we deserve more than a seat at the table but perhaps the speaker's podium as well”.
VINE DELORIA, JR.
AWARDS
New York Festivals
“Finalist Award”
American Indian Film Festival
“Honoree”
American Academy of Religion
“Honoree”
Amnesty International Film Festival
“Honoree”
Human Rights Watch Film Festival
“Honoree”
Natl. Congress of American Indians
“Honoree”
Parliament of the World's Religions
“Honoree”
Palm Springs Native American Film Festival
“Honoree”
“Informative ...overview of the diverse religious-freedom issues effecting Native Americans. ...Worthy material for educational outlets -- particularly classrooms, given that its eight distinct sections can easily be shown one or a few at a time. ...Issues highlighted here include clear-cutting forests, pollution, land development and governmentally limited access to sacred sites. ...vanishing native languages, difficulty prison inmates have in observing their religion, and the criminalization of ritual peyote use. ...Irony is not lost that First Nation peoples are experiencing such disputes in a country expressly founded to protect religious freedom”.
VARIETY
“The Indian Wars are still being fought. The same institutions that perpetrated the genocide historically continue to support or condone them. The methods may have changed but strategy remains the same: the conquest of the Indian Nations, the usurpation of their land and the eradication of any witness to or evidence of the holocaust. "A SEAT AT THE TABLE" is a testament to the resilience and fortitude of native peoples in their struggle to preserve their culture and traditions against the onslaught of an overweening materialism that threatens all life on the planet”.
JAMIE CROMWELL
Available as: VHS and DVD DreamCatchers Presents A Kifaru Production |
Professor Huston Smith is widely regarded as the most eloquent and accessible contemporary authority on the history of religions. In this thought-provoking documentary he is featured in dialogues with eight American Indian leaders.
The film interweaves thoughtful commentary, sequences shot in threatened Indian sacred sites, and scenes from the Third Parliament of the World's Religions in Cape Town, South Africa. The result is a profound and poignant exploration of the myriad problems faced by contemporary Native Americans in practicing their religious ceremonies and beliefs.
Each of the film's eight segments deals with an important obstacle to American Indian religious freedom. Taken as a whole, the film provides an outstanding overview of the spiritual ways of today's Native Americans. The Native leaders and the topics they examine with Prof. Smith are as follows:
Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee), Senior Staff Attorney, Native American Rights Fund: A History and overview of the American Indian struggle for religious freedom;
Winona LaDuke (Anishinabe), Director, White Earth Land Recovery Project: Native religions and the earth; pollution and clear-cutting as religious persecution;
Frank Dayish, Jr. (Dine), President, Native American Church of North America: The triumph of the Native American Church's struggle for the religious use of Peyote;
Charlotte Black Elk (Lakota), Primary Advocate for protection of the Black Hills: Protection of The Black Hills and Native access to sacred sites;
Doug George-Kanentiio (Mohawk), journalist and activist: Destruction of Native languages and the resulting damage to Native ceremonies; Lenny Foster (Dine), Director/Spiritual Advisor, Navajo Nation Corrections Project: Injustices faced by incarcerated Native Americans;
Tonya Gonnella Frichner (Onondaga), President, American Indian Law Alliance: The spiritual threat posed to indigenous peoples by the Human Genome Diversity Project;
Guy Lopez (Crow Creek Sioux), Coordinator, Sacred Lands Protection Program, Association of American Indian Affairs: Disrespect of Apache beliefs by University of Arizona and Jesuit astrophysicists.
The film includes excerpts of messages by the Dalai Lama, South African President Nelson Mandela, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The ceremonial opening of the week-long Parliament flamboyantly displays the rich variety of religious traditions from around the world and includes a performance of an Iroquois ancestral song by noted American Indian singer Joanne Shenandoah (Oneida), who also delivers the articulate narration for the documentary.
The menus on the DVD version of the film enable easy access to particular segments and encourage in-depth classroom discussion and analysis.
"A Seat at the Table" is an exemplary teaching tool that will spotlight the issues of Native American religious freedom for a wide variety of courses in Native American studies, religious studies and comparative religion, cultural anthropology, American history and studies, and legal studies. The film is also the ideal enhancement to the new book by the same title published by University of California Press.
"A Seat at the Table" was produced by Gary Rhine for Kifaru Productions. The program was written by Phil Cousineau.