"Before diving more deeply into this book, I should note that its author has had a long career in both academe and museum curation, the latter at the Smithsonian Institution's Folklife and Cultural Heritage Center. Indigenous film is her specialty, and she currently co-directs the Smithsonian's Mother Tongue Film Festival. In fact, this book is a retrospective account of the role Indigenous film festivals play, and she provides a candid behind-the-scenes look at how they function. Throughout, she takes a firm political stand on behalf of Indigenous filmmaking and filmmakers, applauding their role in mounting stiff resistance to mainstream culture that, she feels, has long oppressed Indigenous people by usurping their land and suppressing their voices.
The process of awarding recognition to standout Indigenous films (a corollary of the Academy Awards) is highlighted throughout this book. It reads like a Who's Who of Indigenous film in the Americas. As the author makes clear, the Comité Latinoamericano de Cine de Pueblos Indígenas (CLACPI) has been a primary force in encouraging and promoting Indigenous filmmakers and their works. Others (including Premio Internacional Anaconda) are also important in recognizing and promoting Indigenous films and their filmmakers. Although their efforts tend to be overshadowed by the powerful mainstream cinema, they continue to produce important works that are reaching broader audiences. For her part, the author sides with film judges who prefer "… grittier, verbose and politically charged films" (p. 115-116), which (alas) often lose out to slicker main-stream-oriented movies.
Happily, this book is well organized into a series of engagingly named chapters that progressively reveal the evolving nature of Indigenous films. It begins by highlighting the importance of Indigenous cinema, then charts its initial rise and expansion ("From the Four Directions"); then its regional variation ("The Puma and Jaguar"), its varied spaces of performance ("The Eagle and the Condor"), and its diverse methodologies and overall trajectory ("Following the Path of the Serpent"). Subsequent chapters cover the preservation and conservation of these films ("An Invisible Archive") and, finally, the future directions of Indigenous filmmaking ("Toward a Global Indigenous Cinema"). Of special note are the appendices, the first two of which list and briefly describe each of the award-winning films recognized by CLACPI and Premio Anaconda over the past 40 years. The third appendix is an informative chronological listing of Indigenous film festivals from their inception in 1975 to 2024. The author has attended and participated in many of them, and her insider's view also makes this book an insightful personal memoir." (Review by Richard Francaviglia, Journal of Latin American Geography, vol. 24, nr. 2, September 2025, p. 198)