Tag Archives: Wilma Mankiller

Dreams Have No Borders: The 8th Indianer/Inuit North American Film Festival

By Maria Moss and Sabrina Völz

Acosia Red Elk and Drew Hay­den Tay­lor. Pho­to cred­it: Sab­ri­na Völz

Ask any Native Stud­ies schol­ar in Europe, and they will be well aware of the Euro­pean fas­ci­na­tion with Native peo­ples of North Amer­i­ca – a fas­ci­na­tion that can be traced back to the nov­els of 19th cen­tu­ry writer Karl May who fur­thered the noble sav­age stereo­type. The pre­em­i­nent schol­ar for Native Stud­ies, Hart­mut Lutz, even coined a term for it: Indi­anthu­si­asm. When we heard about the 8th Indi­an­er Inu­it Fes­ti­val in Stuttgart from Feb­ru­ary 6–9, 2020, two ques­tions came to mind: Would this Indi­anthu­si­asm come to life or be decon­struct­ed at the fes­ti­val? And is “Indi­an­er” even a term that should still be used in Ger­man-speak­ing countries?

So we packed our bags and took the 5½-hour train ride from Lüneb­urg to Stuttgart to inves­ti­gate. The festival’s pro­gram was quite exten­sive, encom­pass­ing doc­u­men­taries, short films, fea­ture films, children’s films, and music videos pro­duced and direct­ed by Indige­nous artists from North Amer­i­ca and beyond. Apart from vis­it­ing the film screen­ings, we also encoun­tered fas­ci­nat­ing peo­ple who gave us an inkling of the impres­sive vari­ety of con­tem­po­rary Native artis­tic expression.

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