The VeRONAka movie is a 10-minute comedy/drama with a documentary twist. The film is a fictionalized version of the true story of our clan mothers giving COVID-19 a Mohawk name so we are able to respect the illness, understand why it is here and then invite it to leave. The main character - VeRONAka - is unleashed by the upheaval in the world and is terrorizing her community. But she didn't count on the power of the Mohawk Aunties.
The film also features an audio interview with Wa’kerakátste Louise McDonald, the Mohawk Bear Clan clan mother from Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, who named the virus.
Created with all-Indigenous principle cast and crew on Rotinonhson:ni Territory, VeRONAka is a timely movie and one that can help all of us transform the fear and the chaos in the world.
2) The "With Love Trilogy"
a. To Wisconsin with Love 2014
Eastern Mennonite University documentary students' spring 2014 project "To Wisconsin with Love" about Wisconsin Penokee Hills Ojibwe/ally mine resistance and envisioning and West Virginia water contamination. This film is a cautionary story about communities under siege from extractive industry. Using the history of mining and the recent Elk River contamination in West Virginia as a reference, the film looks at the developing story of a proposed mine in the Penokee Hills of Wisconsin. The site is planned to span 22 miles, which would make it the largest open-pit iron mine in the world. UPDATE: The mining company pulled out of the Penokee Hills in late February 2015. Here is an article about it.
b. From Wisconsin With Love 2016
From 2011 - 2015 community members in Wisconsin's Penokee Hills on the south shore of Lake Superior challenged what would have been the world's largest taconite mine. The centerpiece of that challenge was the Anishinabe-led Harvest Education Learning Project: a five-acre protest/envisioning camp on the edge of the proposed mine site. In 2015 the mining company closed its doors and left the region. "From Wisconsin With Love: People of Harvest" is the story of what the community was fighting for from the perspective of Anishinabe prophecy and practice - and what happened next.
This film is the sequel to the 2014 documentary "To Wisconsin With Love"
c. The Eagle and The Condor - From Standing Rock with Love 2018
Water protectors recall the power and violence of the 2016/17 Standing Rock action camps as they rely on ceremony to resist resource extraction and heal our modern world.
