Research guides: Two Spirit and LGBTQIA Indigenous Resources: Films

Films Available at the Library

Below is a list of Two Spirit films available through the University of Toronto Library system. For licensed online titles, you will need a University of Toronto UTORID to view.

Johnny Greyeyes Johnny Greyeyes is a powerful story of a Native American woman struggling to maintain strength, love and spirit. Since the shooting death of her father, Johnny has spent most of her life in prison. There, she forms a new family and falls in love with her cellmate Lana
The business of fancydancing Former Spokane Reservation best friends, Seymour and Aristotle have taken different paths when they are brought together for the funeral of an old friend. Both went off to college; one is now a successful poet, the other returned home embittered. Tensions and resentments flare as they meet again.
Byron Chief-Moon : Grey Horse Rider Byron Chief-Moon, Grey Horse Rider: Father of three, successful TV actor and artist and proud member of the First Nations two-spirited gay community, Byron Chief-Moon is a fascinating mesh of dynamic personae. But when he dances alone in the forest, the complexity of the real world washes away, and we can see his spiritual self take hold. Interviews combine with mesmerizing footage of his performances to capture the essence of this cutting-edge artist who founded the Coyote Arts Percussive Performance Association. By melding the history and art of his Canadian Blackfoot Confederacy tribe with issues of contemporary life, Chief-Moon's work makes profound statements about identity and tradition. [Butte]: Unfolds over the course of a day, marking the progression of time at four key points: sunrise, mid-day, late afternoon, and sundown. Filmed in Southern Alberta on the plains and ancestral grounds of the Blood Reserve, the camera instinctively accentuates dancer-choreographer Byron Chief-Moon's deep connection to the land. The film captures images of nature and the connectiveness with the land, undulating waves of wild grass, the slow passage of clouds, pastoral woodland thicket, and streams. The body as landscape is the central image, where the flesh, bone and muscle become synonymous with the land.
Dance to Miss Chief A playful critique of German fascination with North American "Indians". Mixes a choreographed dance performance with footage from German Western films.
Iskootāo Iskootāo is the Cree word for fire but also means "woman's heart." In a live performance with sound and light, 650-tonne billion-year-old chunk of the Canadian shield is transformed into the pulsing heart of Mother Earth by Kent Monkman's infamous alter-ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Steps away from the third most expensive retail space in North America, Miss Chief takes us back to the core. Every heartbeat penetrates deep into the lands of the Mississauga, Seneca, Wendat, Cayuga
Group of seven inches : a titilating taxonomy of the customs and manners of the European male Borrows from the diaries of 19th century painters of "Indians", George Catlin and Paul Kane, turning their dismissive writings on the "romantic savage" upside down and inside out. Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (the alter ego of Cree artist Kent Monkman), forces innocent naked white men to become her figure models, seduces them with whiskey, and when she's done with them, dresses them up as more "authentic" examples of the European male. Shot on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, Group of Seven Inches subverts the subjectivity and authority of colonial art history and everything else it can get its hands on.
Blood river Rose, a hip Native Law student, can barely tolerate her well-meaning but clueless adoptive mother. Feeling at odds with her idyllic white suburban existence, she searches for her natural family. Through Rose's vivid hallucinatory nightmares, we see a Native youth trying to survive on the streets of a big city. As he is pimped, bullied and bashed, Rose experiences his terror and isolation. When she finally meets her brother, they have a hard time bridging the gap between his harsh reality and her sugar-coated existence. Perhaps she has been too quick to write off what she does have.
Casualties of modernity Celebrity artist and humanitarian Miss Chief Eagle Testicle, lead by the Doctor of Fine Arts and closely supervised by the head Nurse, tours a hospital specializing in the treatment of conditions afflicting Modern and Contemporary Art.
A nation is coming A nation is coming draws upon various Native prophecies to reflect on how technology, 'advancement', and disease have changed both the land and the lives of those who lived here. Against images of fire, viruses, and the bleakness of modern civilization, a Ghost Dancer is resurrected: a symbol of the ill fated Lakota prophecy that promised the restoration of the vanishing buffalo herds and the traditional way of life. The dancer assumes different forms as he finds his way through memories and visions; some are apocalyptic and full of dread, while others, like the Ojibway prophecy of the Eighth Fire, are more hopeful and suggest a new beginning.
Deep inside Clint Star Explores the lives of several young native people. Deals with issues of identity, sexuality and intimacy and their feelings about five hundred years of oppression.
Honey Moccasin Investigates the authenticity, cultural identity, and the articulation of modern Native American experience in cinematic language and pop culture.
Two soft things, two hard things As a small group in Nunavut, Canada prepare for a seminal LGBT Pride celebration in the Arctic, the film explores how colonization and religion have shamed and erased traditional Inuit beliefs about sexuality and family structure and how, 60 years later, a new generation of Inuit are actively "unshaming" their past.
Two spirits Examines the role of two-spirit people in the Navajo culture in the context of the story of a gay youth named Fred Martinez. Martinez was a nádleehí or a male-bodied person with a feminine essence, who was murdered in a hate crime at the age of sixteen. Discusses the traditional Native American perspective on gender and sexuality and the need for a balanced interrelationship between the feminine and masculine. Includes interviews with Martinez's mother, Pauline Mitchell. Two Spirits interweaves the tragic story of a mother’s loss of her son with a revealing look at the largely unknown history of a time when the world wasn’t simply divided into male and female and many Native American cultures held places of honor for people of integrated genders. Fred Martinez was nбdleehн, a male-bodied person with a feminine essence, a special gift according to his ancient Navajo culture. He was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at sixteen by a young man who bragged to friends that he had “bug-smashed a fag.” Two Spirits explores the life and death of a boy who was also a girl and the essentially spiritual nature of gender and sexuality. The documentary offers a unique perspective on gender and sexuality, one that is anchored in traditions that were once widespread among the indigenous cultures of North America. The film explores the history of Native two-spirit people—who combine the traits of both men and women with qualities that are also unique to individuals who express multiple genders. The Navajo believe that to maintain harmony, there must be a balanced interrelationship between the feminine and the masculine within the individual, in families, in the culture, and in the natural world. Two Spirits reveals how these beliefs were historically expressed in a natural range of sexual and gender diversity. For the first time on film, it examines the Navajo concept of nбdleehн, “one who constantly transforms.” In Navajo culture, there are four genders; some indigenous cultures recognize more. Although two-spirit people were celebrated in many tribes, as Europeans began to arrive on this continent Native views that the range of human sexuality is not a sin but a gift were met with genocide, the forced imposition of Christianity, and other kinds of subjugation that have resulted in many tribal communities losing touch with their two-spirit traditions. Native activists working to renew their cultural heritage adopted the English term “two-spirit” as a useful shorthand to describe the entire spectrum of gender and sexual expression that is better and more completely described in their own languages. The film demonstrates how they are revitalizing two-spirit traditions and once again claiming their rightful place within their tribal communities. Two Spirits mourns the young Fred Martinez and the threatened disappearance of the two-spirit tradition, but it also brims with hope and the belief that we all are enriched by multi-gendered people, and that all of us—regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or cultural heritage—must be free to be our truest selves.
Two spirits: native lesbians and gays Using excerpts from Mujeria II : primitive and proud, Honored by the moon, and Me, and Mr. Mauri, the present status of, and attitutes toward, Native American lesbians and gays is examined.
Water flowing together Offers an intimate portrait of a remarkable dancer, Jock Soto, who retired from the New York City Ballet at age forty, after a twenty-four-year career. Soto's journey as an openly gay man of Navajo Indian and Puerto Rican descent provides a rare glimpse into the life of a dancer and the disparate worlds which shaped this important artist. Soto was asked to join the New York City Ballet by George Balanchine at sixteen after first studying at the affiliated School of American Ballet on a full scholarship.

Online Videos and Films

The following is a list of Two Spirit films, filmmakers and resources available on the internet.

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Two Spirit and LGBTQIA Indigenous Resources

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