Check out these two new
sites from Turtle Island Productions 
"Alcatraz Is Not An Island"
In Memory- Millie Ketcheshawno
1937-2000
Winner
Best Documentary Feature
24th Annual American Indian Film Festival
Official Selection 2001 Sundance Film Festival
2001 Taos Talking Pictures Festival Land Grant Award Finalist
Nationwide broadcast on PBS in November of 2002 Check your local PBS listings.
Director James Fortier and Producer Jon Plutte, with
support from the Independent Television Service, KQED Public Televsion,
the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Mission Indians, and the Bay Area Video
Coalition have completed the re-edit of the original 70-minute version of
"Alcatraz Is Not An Island," paving the way for a slot in the
PBS National Programming Schedule in November, 2002. For more information
about how to sponsor a preview screening of the new 56 minute version of
this award-winning documentary on your reservation, in your community, Tribal
school, Tribal college or University AIS Department, contact Jim at 650-738-9105.
Recent community outreach screenings have taken place at the American Indian
Studies Professors Conference at ASU, Brown University Native Students Convocation
Week, the Wisconsin Indian Education Association Conference, Oneida Nation/Syracuse,
and more. Or contact the National Outreach Department at ITVS at 415-356-8383
or e-mail jim_sommers@itvs.org. Click
here for complete
press release. Also go to www.pbs.org/alcatrazisnotanisland
for more information.
To purchase Alcatraz Is Not An Island
go to http://ucmedia.berkeley.edu/new/newframe.html
Waasa Inaa
bidaa: "We Look In All Directions"
Winner Best Documentary Feature, and Best Documetary
Series at the 2002 American Indian Film Festival, San Francsico.
Received 5 Regional Emmy Awards, including two in best documentary categories.
National PBS broadcast in November, 2002. Check your local PBS listings.
Also premiering on the Aboriginal People's
Television Network throughout Canada on March 4, 2003.
Writer/Associate Producer James Fortier recently completed
work on this groundbreaking, historical, PBS 6-hour Ojibwe documentary series
for WDSE, PBS-Eight in Duluth, MN. Click here
for more details and visit the companion website, also being produced by
Turtle Island Productions at www.ojibwe.org.
To purchase copies of this series,
the companion book, or CD soundtrack, contact Lorraine Norrgard at 218-724-8567.
Current Productions
Native Americans In The 21st Century
Local Bay Area Filmmaker tapped to Direct and DP 90
minute National PBS documentary.
James M. Fortier, owner of Turtle Island Productions,
recently returned from Cherokee, NC after directing and shooting a 90-minute
episode of the National PBS documentary series tentatively titled "Native
Americans in the 21st Century." The series is being produced by Native
American Public Telecommunications, a member of the minority consortia of
CPB, with support from PBS. The series is the first in-depth look at the
contemporary American Indian experience from the perspective of diverse
American Indian communities across the country.
This episode focuses on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians between the
Smokey Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains National Parks. The EBCI are the
descendents of little more than 1000 Cherokees who refused to remove to
Indian Territory in Oklahoma on the infamous Trail of Tears, whereby thousands
died during the forced march. The EBCI literally hid out in the mountains
of south-western North Carolina and eventually obtained Federal and State
legal status and a land base of their own.
The production is also the first of it's kind to be produced, written, directed,
and in this case, shot by an entirely American Indian crew of filmmakers.
Fortier, who has spent nearly 15 years as a Lighting Director, Gaffer, and
DP in the Bay Area before writing, producing, and directing documentaries,
is Métis-Ojibway (mixed French-Canadian and Ojibway descent) with
strong ties to his Ojibway family in Ontario Canada. Fortier has worked
on numerous Native American productions in the US and Canada, and his documentary
"Alcatraz Is Not An Island" screened at the 2001 Sundance Film
Festival, and is premiering on National PBS in November, 2002 (KQED, Nov.
5 at 9 PM).
For more info contact James Fortier at 650-738-9105 or e-mail at jfortier@turtle-island.com.
"American Lynching: Strange and
Bitter Fruit"
James Fortier is currently the Co-Producer and Director
of Photography for the documentary feature American Lynching: Strange And
Bitter Fruit, produced and directed by Gode Davis. For more information
go to www.americanlynching.com
"I is Not for Indian"
Turtle Island Productions is now developing a new one
hour documentary tentatively titled "I" is not for Indian. This
documentary for public television will examine the controversial issue of
how Native American histories, cultures, issues, and historic Indian-white
relations have been, and continually are still "taught" and presented
in the pubic school curricula across the country. Click
here to learn more about this project and how you can get involved as
an underwriter or contributor with your own stroy to tell regarding this
issue.
TURTLE ISLAND HOCKEY CAMP & CULTURAL RETREAT
FAIRBANKS, ALASKA July 28- August 2, 2003
Welcome to the Native Community from across North America
For more information call 907-455-4203 or click here.
Wa-swa-goning- "Place where they spearfish with torches" Traditional Ojibway Village. |
Wa-swa-goning Dance Theater- "Dance...the spirit of a Nation" Lac du Flambeau Chippewa Reservation, WIS |
"Waasa Inaabidaa: We Look In All Directions"PBS documentary series for WDSE-8, Duluth, MN www.ojibwe.org |
| Homecoming- 1998 Pic River Ojibway First Nation Pow wow welcomes Metis-Ojibway filmmaker James M. Fortier. |
In
America today, most people agree it would be unacceptable for a professional
or collegiate athletic organization to call themselves the "Chicago
Blacks," the "San Francisco Orientals," the "New York
Jews," or the "San Antonio Latinos," and especially unconscionable
to use the racial epithets associated with these ethnic groups. Why then
do most Americans, including other ethnic minorities, approve of the continued
use of such names as the "Washingtong Redskins" for professional
and collegiate sports teams? Do you know how the term "Redskin"
originated and the racial insult it implies to Native Americans and First
Nations people? Is this a matter of political correctness, or is this another
example of exploitation and genocide of Native culture and people? For more
information about this issue, click on the links at the left and below.
Look for Jay Rosenstein's PBS documentary which aired last year titled "In
Whose Honor?"
THIS WEB SITE WAS LAST UPDATED ON April 15, 2003
