Feature Films

Directed By Rebecca Landsberry-Baker (Muscogee Creek) and Joe Peeler

5:45 PM, Saturday, 10/7, Zeitgeist Zinema 1

When the Muscogee Nation suddenly begins censoring their free press, a rogue reporter fights to expose her government’s corruption in a historic battle that will have ramifications for all of Indian Country. The battle for the free, unimpeded flow of information to the public is in danger in both the Muscogee Nation and the United States, and in both cases, those who control that flow hold some measure of sway over their elections’ outcomes. Bad Press holds up a timely and important mirror to those in power in both the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and America.

Directed By Zak Rivers

2:00 PM, Sunday, 10/8, Zeitgeist Zinema 2
*Minnesota Made

Dale “Greybeard” Sanders challenges himself to set another world record, trying to reclaim his title as the oldest person to paddle the full source to sea on the Mississippi River. At 87 years old it takes perseverance and an attitude that says, “One of these days I’ll get old."

12:00 PM, Sunday, 10/8, Zeitgeist Zinema 2
*Minnesota Made
*Iron Opera Co-Director Mike Scholtz in attendance
*Iron Opera Co-Director Marius Anderson in attendance

That’s the Last Straw
Directed by Melton Barker
From the late 1930s into the early 1970s, Dallas native, Melton Barker and his company, Melton Barker Juvenile Productions, traveled all over the country – from Texas and New Mexico to North Carolina and Indiana – filming local children acting, singing, and dancing in two-reel films that Barker titled The Kidnappers Foil. This production, filmed here in Duluth, Minnesota in 1938, is a rare variation on Barker’s Kidnappers Foil script. The copy held at the Minnesota Historical Society is the only known copy of the film in existence.

The Iron Opera:
Directed By Mike Scholtz and Marius Anderson
It’s not easy to stage an opera in the middle of northern Minnesota, but this is the Iron Range where the people are stubborn and the music of the Old World still runs deep in their veins. Watch as a renowned concert pianist teams up with an Ojibwe language teacher, a skateboarding accordionist, and talent imported from every corner of the Earth to pull off the impossible.

Directed By Marie-Michèle Jasmin-Bélisle

7:30 PM, Saturday, 10/7, Zeitgeist Zinema 2

The year is 1968. Nowa Cumig, better known by his English name Dennis Banks, has started a movement with a few friends that would soon make ripples through history: the American Indian Movement.

Directed By Thomas Lindsey Haskin

3:00 PM, Saturday, 10/7, Spirit of the North Theatre
*Director Thomas Lindsey Haskin in attendance
*Subjects Cory Brant and Stuart Sivertson in attendance

J.K. Simmons narrates Relentless, which explores the mystery behind how and why the fish most prized by people nearly disappeared from the largest freshwater ecosystem on Earth: the Great Lakes.