We Are the Warriors, 2023
Producer/Assistant Editor
As people nationwide continue to challenge the harmful phenomenon of Native American mascots, public school systems are addressing their use of Indigenous team names, icons, and imagery. We Are the Warriors follows residents of Wells, Maine, as they take on this polarizing issue after facing public allegations that Warriors football fans mocked Indigenous culture. The film shows how Wells High School decides the fate of their school’s Native mascot by engaging in challenging conversations with Wabanaki people about intent and impact and by reflecting upon their own understanding of the town’s colonial and contemporary history.
Visit WeAretheWarriorsFilm.com to learn more.
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This River is Our Relative, 2023
Co-Director/Editor
This film is about the Penobscot Nation’s intrinsic kinship connection to and tireless environmental advocacy for the Penobscot River. The story is told through the voices of 24 Penobscot people, who share their experience of historical, physical, and spiritual connection to place; of cultural identity and survival. “You can point to any aspect of our culture from a riverine perspective,” says Penobscot Cultural and Historic Preservation Dept. Director James E. Francis, Sr. This documentary shows the Penobscot Nation’s dedication to environmental justice and their efforts to minimize pollution, demonstrates the importance of respecting inherent Tribal sovereignty, and celebrates Penobscot peoples’ ongoing river-based cultural traditions. As people who have lived in reciprocity with the Penobscot River for over 10,000 years, there is nobody more committed than the Penobscot people to protecting the health of this watershed. “It is our responsibility to care for that River, for all of us,” explains Penobscot activist and filmmaker Dawn Neptune Adams. Despite many obstacles including ongoing territorial theft and a rapidly increasing number of pollutants, the Penobscot Nation and its people continue to demonstrate their commitment to protecting the health of their beloved Relative, the Penobscot River. “I always come back to the water because that’s where I belong. It’s my Relative,” explains Penobscot Elder Kathy Paul, “and I want to stay and support that Relative.”
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The Power of Storytelling, currently in production.
Producer/Director
Stories are everywhere. Life is a collection of stories that interact and shape each other—7 billion intertwining human life stories, each of which has countless stories within it, and all of which combine to create the larger story of the reality of our cultures and the human world as a whole. The stories that we tell and the stories that we hear continually shape our lives. From inspiring joy and creativity to influencing our values and psychologies, shaping our cultures, our often differing perceptions of history and current events, and even altering the social and physical environments in which we live—stories are the glue that holds the human world together. Through a combination of animation and interviews with professionals in their respective fields (storytellers, historians, authors, motivational coaches, and journalists, to name a few), this video essay on the Power of Storytelling will investigate the many ways in which the hearing and telling of stories profoundly shape our lives.
This film is currently in production. Visit ThePowerOfStorytellingFilm.com to keep up to date, or follow me on Instagram.
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Kihtahkomikumon (Our Land). 2021.
Editor
A documentary short produced by Sunlight Media Collective. In 2021, by an act of humanism, solidarity, and reparation, the Passamaquoddy tribe has been reunited with 140 acres of their unceded Ancestral territory – part of the largest island in Kci Monosakom, (Big Lake) Maine. To the Passamaquoddy people, it’s more than a land return; it is the return of a stolen family member. In this short film, we join Passamaquoddy community members who are finally able to reunite with their non-human Relative.
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The Maker. 2017.
Producer/Director
Meet Dan Weaver, a man who has devoted his life to a passion for creating. He is establishing a nonprofit hands-on educational organization to share his multi-disciplinary skills and workshop with a new generation of people passionate about making. I am lucky to have this unique and passionate individual as my father. The Maker premiered at the REEL Crafted Vancouver Film Festival as part of their “International Shorts: International Craft” selections in May 2019.
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Jones Cove: A Place Through the Years. 2016.
Producer/Director, student project at College of the Atlantic, 2016
Here is the story of the history of a single location — Jones Cove, in Gouldsboro, Maine. It shows history as a local thing that happened in a real place to real people whose struggles, joys, and stories we can all relate to. The history of this place spans a wide range of time — starting way back 420 million years ago when this area was a giant volcano, and continuing through the glaciers, both pre and post-contact Wabanaki history, colonization, the industrial revolution, and ending in the early 1970s when my parents moved to live beside this cove.
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