Aanikoobijigan, a new documentary by Ojibwe filmmakers Adam and Zack Khalil, follows the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance as Tribal repatriation specialists work to bring Ancestors and funerary belongings home from museums and universities, including Michigan State University.
NAGPRA provides the legal framework, but the film also asks how these institutions came to possess Native human remains in the first place, and what this means for Tribes seeking to bring their relatives home.
Aanikoobijigan won the NEXT Audience Award at Sundance.
Michigan readers will have two upcoming opportunities to see it: October 12 at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, and Friday, October 16 at MSU’s Broad Art Museum as part of the Underground Film Festival.
MSU is also tentatively planning a daytime screening and Tribal panel around the film, along with additional NAGPRA education and awareness programming for Native American Heritage Month. MSU’s NAGPRA office is also preparing a history of the university’s NAGPRA compliance for release in connection with that programming.
Further reading
Sundance Institute, Space and Time Aren’t Linear in “Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]”
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