Local Filmmaker Featured in Reciprocity Project

The Reciprocity Project is a US-based production that works alongside Indigenous storytellers and communities worldwide. Their team is made up of people with diverse Indigenous and non-Indigenous identities and life experiences – viewing diversity as a source of strength.

This short film series and multimedia platform, made in partnership with Indigenous storytellers and their communities worldwide, invites learning from time honored and current Indigenous ways of being. Each project is created by media makers and their communities within their home territories.

The first season invited Indigenous creators to explore what reciprocity means to them and their communities. Local filmmaker Katsitsionni Fox (Mohawk) and Xochitl Fox (Mexica/Azteca), are featured in Season Two.

Featured in Reciprocity Project Season One

Episode 1- Diiyeghan naii Taii Tr'eedaa (We Will Walk the Trail of our Ancestors) by Princess Daazhraii Johnson with Alisha Carlson (Gwich'in).

Episode 2: ᎤᏕᏲᏅ (What They've Been Taught) by Brit Hensel with Keli Gonzales (Cherokee Nation).

Episode 3: SŪKŪJULA TEI (Stories of My Mother) by David Hernandez Palmar with Flor Palmar (Wayuu Iipuana).

Episode 4: Weckuwapasihtit (Those Yet to Come) by Geo Neptune and Brianna Smith (Passamaquoddy).

Episode 5: Weckuwapok (The Approaching Dawn). Co-directors (alphabetically): Jacob Bearchum, Taylor Hensel, Adam Mazo, Chris Newell, Roger Paul, Kavita Pillay, Tracy Rector, and Lauren Stevens.

Episode 6: Ma's House by Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock).

Episode 7: Pili Ka Moʻo by Justyn Ah Chong with Malia Akutagawa (Kanaka Maoli)

Featured in Reciprocity Project Season Two

Reciprocity Project Season Two is considered 'a journey through return' – facing a climate crisis, Reciprocity Project embraces Indigenous value systems created in kinship with Earth.

In Episode 2, Fox and Xochitil created a film called "Tentsítewahkwe" as the viewer journeys with Jessica Shenandoah as she revives land-based knowledge of our ancestors.

"As a young girl, Jessica Shenandoah (Wolf Clan from the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation) learned about harvesting medicine and food plants alongside her mother and grandmother. Contemporary Native People are often separated many generations from their traditional knowledge due to the effects of colonial realities such as boarding school, forced religion, and land theft."

In the latest Native women-centered film by Fox – director of Ohero:kon - Under the Husk and Without a Whisper - Konnon:kwe, Shenandoah goes on a journey across four seasons and multiple Native territories to connect with other knowledge keepers reviving the land-based knowledge of their ancestral grandmothers in order to return to time-honored practices of pottery. making, mat weaving, hide tanning, medicine making, food gathering, and more. Jessica embodies the Mohawk concept of Tentsítewahkwe as she picks up knowledge of the old ways, these slow methods of creating and connecting in reciprocity with the Earth.

Episode 1: Ma ŋaye ka Masaala a se ka Wɔmɛti (From God To Man) by Lansana Mansaray with Ibrahim Sorious Samura, and Samuel Kargbo (Limba).

Epsidoe 3: TAYAL FOREST CLUB by Laha Mebow with Limuy Asien (Atayal).

Episode 4: Tahnaanooku' by Justin Deegan (Arikara, Oglala, and Hunkpapa) with Jennifer Martel (Cheyenne).

Episode 5: ENCHUKUNOTO (The Return) by Laissa Malih with John Ole Tingoi (Maasai).

Epsode 6: ARMEA by Letila Mitchell (Rotuman) with Rotuman Women's Weaving Collective & Iane Tavo (Rotuman).

Episode 7: ÁHKUIN by Radio-JusSunná / Sunná Nousuniemi (Sámi) & Guhtur Niillas Rita Duomis / Tuomas Kumpulainen with Ááná Jyyrki Sáárá-Máárjá / Saara-Maria Salonen.

All Episode can be found online at https://www.reciprocity.org/films/ahkuin