Indigenous Filmmakers You Need on Your Radar
By Brittany Bendabout
Brittany Bendabout is a celebrated visual storyteller and advocate whose work consistently explores the complexities of Native American identity, culture, and justice. Brittany divides her time between freelance photography and film-related projects. An enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, her work explores the identification and cultural involvement of Native Americans in Oklahoma. Brittany is also the co-founder of Women in Film Oklahoma, a collective dedicated to connecting and uplifting women, non-binary, and two-spirit individuals within the filmmaking community. Brittany shares her list of 5 Indigenous filmmakers everyone should watch.
Loren Waters (Cherokee/Kiowa) is an award-winning filmmaker, with notable work that spans directing, producing, and casting through her very own Waters Media based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her film Tiger (2025) premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing. The film follows Dana Tiger, an acclaimed artist and prominent figure, and her family's t-shirt company. Inspired by the artistry of Dana Tiger, Waters paints a beautiful and heartbreaking picture of the Tiger family and their iconic t-shirts from the 1980’s.
@lorenkwaters
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Colleen Thurston (Choctaw) is a non-fiction storyteller and film curator based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her feature documentary Drowned Land (2025) follows the Kiamichi River in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, where water protectors of the community fight for the river's sanctity and its endangered species. Thurston’s documentary is deeply personal and connects cultural exploitation from past to present.
@peteograham
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ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby (Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians) is a writer and director based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A former fellow of the Sundance Institute and a MFA Alumni of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, his film The Beguiling (2024) premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The Beguiling is a short horror comedy about a burgeoning romance between two Indigenous people that ends up taking a jaw-dropping twist.
@ishkwaazhe
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Paige Bethmann (Mohawk/Oneida) is a first-time feature filmmaker based in Reno, Nevada. With a career history in broadcasting, her filmmaking journey has been inspired by the storytelling of her Mohawk grandmother. Bethmann’s film Remaining Native (2025) is a coming-of-age documentary told from the perspective of 17-year-old runner, Ku Stevens, struggling to navigate his dream of becoming a collegiate athlete as the memory of his great grandfather’s escape from boarding school connects past, present, and future. Bathmann heartfully captures the long-term effects of generational trauma that is still present in Indigenous people today.
@remainingnative
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Katsitsionni Fox (Mohawk) is a Haudenosaunee artist and filmmaker that resides in the Mohawk Territory of Akwesasne. Her film KANENON:WE - Original Seeds (2025), a documentary that follows four Indigenous women that are regenerating and rematriating endangered heirloom seeds for the generations to come.
@lifegiverspottery
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Please join us in celebrating this Indigenous Peoples’ Day by following, supporting, sharing and purchasing from Indigenous creatives in all mediums!