26th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival

Program

These shorts represent individual and community topics and concerns in their contemporary contexts. The works screened in this category are eligible for a Jury Award for Best Documentary Short.

Writer producer Donick Cary (The Simpsons, Parks and Recreation, Have a Good Trip) has been a huge fan of the Washington D.C. pro football team since before he could walk. Passed down from his dad, he was excited to pass the tradition onto his kids. Donick never questioned the team name and or Native American logo until one day, while watching a game, his 9-year-old son, Otis, asked him if it was racist. When Otis suggests they ask Native Americans how they feel, it sends the two on a cross-country journey full of unexpected surprises. From the halls of Congress (Deb Haaland) to Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange; from the creator of the show Reservation Dogs (Sterlin Harjo) to real life reservation dogs (teens on the Pine Ridge rez), the film brings to light the stories and perspectives of Native Americans from all walks of life in the United States.

Amidst the redwood trees on the California-Oregon border sits one of the most infamous prisons in US history - Pelican Bay. For decades, it held mostly Black and Brown men alone in tiny cells for indefinite periods based on questionable evidence. Then one day in 2013, 30,000 prisoners went on hunger strike. THE STRIKE weaves together, thread-by-thread, a half century of personal and criminal justice history into a single, compelling narrative around the drama of the 2013 hunger strike to end indefinite isolation. Grounded in testimonies from the hunger strikers themselves, the film details how the protest was conceived from a whisper inside the halls of Pelican Bay to a colossal feat across California prisons. With unprecedented access to state prison officials and never-before-seen footage from inside Pelican Bay, THE STRIKE reveals the panic that gripped the highest echelons of state government.

Join us for screening and party at Nepantla. The works screened in this category are eligible for Jury and Audience Awards for Best Music Video.