Join us on Saturday, November 18 with refreshments at 6:30 p.m., screening at 7:00 p.m., and a Q&A to follow with the producers, and panelists with the Duamish and Chinook. Let your Facebook friends know you are coming!.
Synopsis:
Indigenous recognition is at the frontline of the battle for native sovereignty. These tribes—who signed treaties, helped settlers, and lost their land—are asking for their treaties to be honored. To redefine their recognition, to put blood quantum restrictions on who is and isn’t native enough, to redefine treaties over and over, continues a toxic cycle of colonialism where the government, and the corporations it partners with, continues to unlawfully profit off of the resources of indigenous lands at great peril to our increasingly climate-challenged world. Promised Land is a social justice documentary that follows two tribes in the Pacific Northwest: the Duwamish and the Chinook, as they fight for the restoration of treaty rights they’ve long been denied. In following their story, the film examines a larger problem in the way that the government and society still looks at tribal sovereignty.
The Northwest is arguably one of the most politically liberal regions in the country. The names of our cities and towns are in Chinuk Wawa and Lushootseed, the region’s native languages. Seattle’s logo is an image of Chief Si’ahl. If in this area, with these tribes that all kids learn about growing up in school, justice can’t be found, then how does that bode for the rest of the country? This film uses the region to spark a discussion about identity and sovereignty, but the message about whose land we inhabit and how we work to right these wrongs is universal.
About the Film:
Promised Land is produced and directed by Vasant and Sarah Salcedo, and sponsored by 4Culture and San Francisco Film Society. It has been chosen for the award for Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking at the 10th Annual LA Skins Fest, and was an official selection for the 41st Annual American Indian Film Festival, Northwest Film Forum’s 19th Annual Local Sightings Film Festival, the 12th Annual Ellensburg Film Festival, and the 5th Annual Social Justice Film Festival, among others.
About the Directors:
Vasant and Sarah Salcedo are a filmmaking partnership based in the Pacific Northwest. They both have degrees in English Literature and Cinema Studies from the University of Washington. They have been writing and filming together for the past decade and PROMISED LAND is their first feature. Their next project after the documentary is a short musical and a female-led science fiction feature.