On March 25th in Portland, Oregon, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) had the pleasure to celebrate and showcase the latest documentary short by 2022 LIFT program awardee Loren Waters (Cherokee and Kiowa).
Community members gathered at the Portland State University Native American Student and Community Center for a screening of Restoring Néške’emāne directed by Loren Waters.
Loren is an award-winning filmmaker and has worked on projects such as Seasons 1-3 of Reservation Dogs, Fancy Dance (2023) and the Martin Scorsese directed feature film, Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Restoring Néške’emāne is her first short documentary, winning the Best Short Documentary at North Dakota Environmental Rights Film Festival and the Honorable Mention at the Tallgrass Film Festival.
Restoring Néške’emāne is an 11-minute documentary short film featuring Damon Dunbar, a Tribal Environmental Professional (TEP) who has worked for more than 20 years to coordinate a community-engaged effort to assess and remediate the toxic landscape of a boarding school shut down in the early 1980s by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. To watch Restoring Néške’emāne visit: https://lorenwaters.com/film
Photos by Robert Franklin.
Following the screening, Mick Rose (Pawnee, Omaha and Diné) of Native Arts and Cultures Foundation moderated a panel discussion with Filmmaker Loren Waters, Chenoa Landry (Puyallup, Ojibway and Swedish) of Native Wellness Institute and Al Rose (Karuk and Diné).
During the discussion Loren shared about why she chose to highlight the work of Damon Dunbar of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribe, and the panelists discussed their experiences restoring or working on just transitions of urban spaces.
Watch the discussion here:
Loren Waters with NACF Staff and Panelists from left to right: Amber Ball, Loren Waters, Mandy Yeahpau, Mick Rose, Al Rose and Chenoa Landry. Photo by Robert Franklin