Tuesday, November 2, 2010

San Francisco Films: 'Finding D-QU' and 'A Good Day to Die'


G H O S T M A C H I N E G R O U P AFFILIATED OBSIDIAN NATION
An American Indian People's Resistance Movement of the 21st Century Davis, California
ANNOUNCING:
TWO FASCINATING AND CONTEMPORARY FILM DOCUMENTARIES TO SEE AT THE AMERICAN INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL IN SAN FRANCISCO:Finding D-QU: The Lonely Struggle of California's Only Tribal College
Director: Christopher Newman
26 Minutes • USA • Documentary Short
In 2005, D-Q University, California's only tribal college, was shut down after a 35-year struggle. Since then, the school's board of trustees, past students, and community members have tried to reopen the school against all odds.
This 30-minute video documentary is structured around a group of occupants who illegally live at the closed D-QU campus amid threats of arrest by the school's board of trustees. Finding D-QU looks at the often-conflictive relationship between the board and the occupants.
This current struggle frames the history of the school, beginning with
D-QU's establishment in the midst of civil rights activism in the late 1960s. The documentary outlines the original vision of D-QU as a space for self-determined higher education and the hope this dream brought to its many students. The film illustrates the ways in which D-QU's ongoing struggles reflect pressing issues in other American Indian communities.
Finding D-QU provides a lens through which to critically examine the wider American Indian movement toward self- determination and sovereignty in its historical context and as it exists today.
Finding D-QU focuses on the historical struggle to maintain a self-reliant educational institution for Indian students and the hardships, successes and failures that come with the movement to reclaim education for Native people. The documentary explores questions concerning past struggles at D-QU, the current situation and the possible future of California's tribal college.
The history of DQ-University reveals that the original people of the Americas continue to struggle to decolonize their culture, traditions and educational systems.
Monday, Nov. 8, 12 Noon
Landmark Embarcadero Center Cinema
San Francisco, CA
$6 general / $6 students and seniors
- AND-
A Good Day To Die
Director: Lynn Salt & David Mueller
92 Minutes • USA • Documentary Feature
Dennis Banks co-founded the American Indian Movement (A.I.M) in 1968 to call attention to the plight of urban Indians in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The film presents an intimate look at Dennis Banks' life beginning with his early experience in boarding schools, through his military service in Japan, his transformative experience in Stillwater State Prison and subsequent founding of a movement that, through confrontational actions in Washington DC, Custer, South Dakota and Wounded Knee, changed the lives of Native Americans' and all indigenous people' forever.
Thursday, Nov. 11, 7:00 p.m.
Palace of Fine Arts
San Francisco, CA
$12 general / $10 students and seniors
*the documentaries described above are but two of many fine productions that will be showcased at the festival. The event runs from Nov 5 - 12
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This information was brought to you courtesy of the Affiliated Obsidian Nation NEWZHOUND woof

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