Draft:Reciprocity Project

• Comment: Sourcing could be better, see the above, and it appears there is sourcing online that could be useful. TLA^tlak 15:22, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

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Reciprocity Project
Created by	Nia Tero
Years	2020–2022
Films and television
Short film(s)	See below

Reciprocity Project is a multimedia platform that began in April 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis. It uses short films, podcasts, and other creative mediums on an online platform to uplift the value of reciprocity through Indigenous knowledge, lifeways and storytelling. The series' goal is to encourage a paradigm shift that reframes relationships among humans, the Earth, and other living beings.

The project shares solutions around the climate crisis and is made in partnership with Indigenous peoples and communities across the world. It is co-produced by the nonprofit organizations Nia Tero and Upstander Project, in association with REI's Co-Op Studios. The project was created by are Tracy Rector, Adam Mazo, Kavita Pillay, and Taylor Hensel (Cherokee).

Reciprocity Project Producer and Managing Director of Storytelling at Nia Tero, Tracy Rector, stated, "To support thriving peoples in thriving places, we must invest in Indigenous storytellers. To Indigenous values and frameworks, when one heals, more will heal. Where one thrives, more will thrive."

"Our shared vision is a paradigm shift toward each of us living in reciprocity – taking good care of each other, our families, neighbors and communities," said Reciprocity Project Producer Adam Mazo, who is also Creative Director at Upstander Project.

Most of Reciprocity Project's documentary, narrative, or experimental films are highlighted separately in the Webby-nominated podcast, Seedcast, which highlights global Indigenous experiences. It is an award-nominated series which received two nominations for the 38th IDA Documentary Awards.

Featured Filmmakers

Reciprocity Project has featured a number of influential filmmakers from throughout the globe. Among the most well-known of them include:

• Letila Mitchell - A artist, arts administrator, mother, dreamer, champion of Rotuman and Indigenous culture, and producer of the dance group Rako Pasefiko. In an interview with the World Bank, she said, "In our region, we practice our arts and cultural practices as everyday things. We practice it like we practice cooking. It's ingrained in us. We do it from a young age. Everyone naturally becomes an artist. The challenge is that there is no or very limited infrastructure around that."

• Laha Mebow - Laha Mebow is a Taiwanese Atayal film director, screenwriter and television producer. She is known as the first female Taiwanese Indigenous film director and TV producer. Her film, Hang in There, Kids (Lokah Laqi 只要我長大), won two awards at the Taipei Film Festival and represented Taiwan for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language nomination in 2016.

• Katsitsionni Fox (Mohawk) - An artist, filmmaker, and educator, Katsitsionni Fox is Bear Clan from the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne. Many of her works have been broadcast through PBS. She was a 2021 Nia Tero Storytelling Fellow and participated in the 2021 Jackson ild Smmit as a Multicultural Alliance Fellow. She got her start teaching video production at a school focued on Mohawk language and culture. She explains her commitment to her community through her work, saying, "All the films that I’ve done, I’ve known the people that are in the film. You have that trust with them so they become comfortable with you and they know you’re not there to exploit their story... you’re connected to them and that [exploitation] isn’t your purpose."

• Laissa Malih - A Laikipian Maasai filmmaker who has been making work since 2017, Malih is the first female filmmaker from her community and focuses her work on uplifting Indigenous cultures from Kenya and around the world. She is also the CEO of the community-based organization, Maasai Cultural Heritage, which she says runs "projects geared towards women and girls' empowerment through aspects such as land, territory, and resources."

Short Films

The first season of Reciprocity Project's short films were released in 2022 and as a series February 2022 at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana, though individual films had separate film festival premiere dates. The episodes were then distributed through American Public Television and later through REI's YouTube Channel and the Reciprocity Project website, in honor of Indigenous People's Day.

Reciprocity Project's second season had its World Premiere in March 2024, during opening night of the Māoriland Film Festival in Ōtaki, Aotearoa (New Zealand).

Episodes

Season	Episodes		Originally released
1	7		2022 (2022)
2	7		2024 (2024)

Season 1 (2022)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by
1	1	Diiyeghan naii Taii Tr’eedaa (We Will Walk the Trail of our Ancestors)	Princess Daazhraii Johnson with Alisha Carlson (Gwich'in)
Filmed in the Gwich'in language, an intergenerational family in present-day Alaska share how the caribou and the people live in reciprocal relationship with one another.
2	2	ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught)	Brit Hensel with Keli Gonzales (Cherokee Nation)
ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught) tenderly showcases how Cherokee communities live in reciprocity with the world and one another. The film is a reflection on tradition, language, land, and a commitment to maintaining balance -- told partially by an elder and first language speaker.
3	3	SŪKŪJULA TEI (Stories of My Mother)	David Hernandez Palmar with Flor Palmar (Wayuu Iipuana)
After a Wayuu woman visits her sister's small village Through conversations with her sister and her sister's children, the Wayuu way of life and sense of care for one another are highlighted.
4	4	Weckuwapasihtit (Those Yet to Come)	Geo Neptune and Brianna Smith (Passamaquoddy)
Revitalizing cultural practices kept from their elders, Peskotomuhkati young people lead an intergenerational process of healing through the reclamation of athasikuwi-pisun, "tattoo medicine."
5	5	Weckuwapok (The Approaching Dawn)	Jacob Bearchum, Taylor Hensel, Adam Mazo, Chris Newell, Roger Paul, Kavita Pillay, Tracy Rector, and Lauren Stevens
Waponahkik, the people of the dawn land, show gratitude to the sun through songs and stories. Internationally-reknowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma visits Passamaquoddy citizens in a shared ritual of celebration.
6	6	Ma’s House	Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock)
An atist and citizen of Shinnecock Nation] restores his family home, Ma's House, to turn it into a community gathering space for artists from diverse backgrounds. In addition to showing his pride in his family's intergenerational history, the film touches on modern challenges facing Indigenous nations today.
7	7	Pili Ka Moʻo	Justyn Ah Chong with Malia Akutagawa (Kanaka Maoli)
A Native Hawaiian family has utilized their traditional knowledge to farm taro for generations. Yet as O‘ahu becomes urbanized around them, they are faced with real estate and judicial proceedings, especially when a settler-owned corporation called Kualoa Ranch destroys their family burial plots in the name of development.

Season 2 (2024)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by
8	1	Ma ŋaye ka Masaala a se ka Wɔmɛti (From God To Man)	Lansana Mansaray
After his father passes away, a Limba man visits his ancestral village in current-day Sierra Leone to reconnect with his language, friends, and traditions. Through striking imagery of rich landscapes and traditional performances, he shows the connection of the Limbas and the world around them, as a people who gather their strength from the forest and have never been forced from their lands.
9	2	Tentsítewahkwe	Katsitsionni Fox (Mohawk)
With traditional knowledge passed down from her mother and grandmother, a Mohawk woman uplifts time-honored traditions within her culture. Whether through the harvesting of traditional medicines, making of pottery, tanning of hides, or other ways of living off the land, Tentsítewahkwe honors the past while looking towards the future.
9	3	TAYAL FOREST CLUB	Laha Mebow
Two Atayal teenagers get lost in the woods of their ancestral homelands, located in present-day Taiwan. As nightfall encroaches and their desperation grows, they call upon their ancestors for guidance. TAYAL FOREST CLUB is one of few narrative short films in Reciprocity Project's collection.
10	4	Tahnaanooku'	Justin Deegan
After the U.S. government's creation of the Garrison Dam, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara find their relationship with the Missouri River severed. For a culture that considers the river their grandmother, such colonization of the land and distance from their lifeways is devastating. Experimental in its documentary portrayal, Tahnaanooku’ is a testament to raising awareness about the holiness of all things and seeking a better path forward.
11	5	ENCHUKUNOTO (The Return)	Laissa Malih
"Our image is a souvinier. The camera takes and takes. I wonder what my camera can give my people in return," says Maasai filmmaker Laissa Malih in some of the opening words of her film. As Malih visits the village that her parents left when she was a child, she documents the beauty and challenge of passing down ancestral ways to the next generations, as well as how the traditions change over time.
12	6	ARMEA	???
Like birds flying back home, The dancers and musicians from the Fijian group Rako Pasefiko travel the world sharing their cultural traditions, but in ARMEA, finally return home like the birds after which the film is named. Pride and power in their tradition is all the more heightened as they speak with knowledge keepers, elders, healers, artisans, and other keepers of the culture as they prepare to perform their latest work.
13	7	ÁHKUIN	Sunná Máret Nousuniemi
Centered around the Sámi oral storytelling tradition, joik, ÁHKUIN is a conceptual call-and-response between a grandmother and her descendants. The experimental documentary uses creative sound design, a voice recording of the filmmaker's grandmother, visits to places that once-were, and a mixture of archival and present-day images to connect the family members across time.

Standalone Short Films

Title	Directed by
"Gath & K'iyh"	Princess Daazhraii Johnson (Neet'saii Gwich'in)
Guided by the wisdom of Ahtna Elder Fred John, Gath and K’iyh: Listen to Heal invites viewers to gather, listen, sing, and dream for humam beings to be in better relation with the world. On the journey, an Alaskan community creates music with Yo-Yo Ma to inspire radical hope for the future.

Reception

Critical response for Season 1

ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught) was selected for Sundance Film Festival 2022, as well as that year's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, along with other Reciprocity Project films. The Utah Review described the short film as, "an exquisite reflection on the Indigenous meaning of reciprocity as it applies to the natural resources and the environment used in one’s livelihood." The film was featured as a part of L.A. Times Short Docs series of short documentaries around topics of environment, social justice, homelessness, and immigration.

An all-Cherokee crew was behind the creation of ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They’ve Been Taught). Director Brit Hensel, a citizen of Cherokee Nation, told ICT that "There is power in pointing a camera at someone and shaping a story... I think being a good Cherokee means knowing your place within the large whole and taking care of those around you. I try my best to do that when I'm creating, that way my work will serve its intended purpose."

Diiyeghan naii Taii Tr’eedaa (We Will Walk the Trail of our Ancestors) was praised for its use of the Gwich’in language, contributing to the tribe's efforts to revitalize their language. The film is believed to be the first ever filmed in Gwich’in.

Weckuwapok (The Approaching Dawn) received extensive press coverage due to the participation of cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The first stop on his film journey was in Portland, Maine, where he met with the Wabanaki people and joined them in a ceremony that shows gratitude to the rising sun, which dates back hundreds of years, prior to the arrival of European settlers. On his second stop of the film tour, he played cello at the edge of the Grand Canyon and listened to the sounds it returned to him, as well as met with local Indigenous people.

References

Category:Documentary short film series Category:Film series introduced in 2022