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On May 16, 2009, a United Nations General Assembly resolution called upon Member States “to promote the preservation and protection of all languages used by peoples of the world.” By the same resolution, the General Assembly proclaimed 2008 as the International Year of Languages, to promote unity in diversity and international understanding, through multilingualism and multiculturalism.

International Mother Language Day has been observed every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as multilingualism. The date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh.

Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.”
‐‐ Source: http://www.un.org/en/events/motherlanguageday/index.shtml

So much of what we do as independent filmmakers is try to create something from nothing, alone with our laptops and our ideas, imagining a film before we begin it, or trying to figure out how to turn footage we have gathered into a story. But there is one place where every year I get together with colleagues who are experiencing the same driven passion to create. As a grantee of the Sundance Documentary Program, I have been invited to be a part of an incredibly familial, inspiring, generous gathering of filmmakers in an intensive series of panels, roundtables, meetings, and presentations organized by Cara Mertes and her extraordinary SDP team. Rushing between panels and screenings and meetings, we shared information, ideas, and stories of failure and success, of frustrations and epiphanies.

Cara set up so many fabulous meetings, panels, and events for us that I didn’t use half my film tickets. My absolute favorite film that I did see, bar none and way beyond all, is The Law in These Parts by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, a superb, subtle, important, complex, beautifully filmed documentary about the Israeli legal system in the occupied territories of Palestine. I found this film inspiring on so many levels – the cinematography, the beautiful archive footage, Ra’anan’s interview techniques, and the extraordinary research that enabled him to cross-examine Israeli judges. Kudos to Ra’anan! A good friend and an extraordinary filmmaker. (Pictured from L to R: Vincent Melilli, Director of Visual Arts School of Marrakesh; with Filmmakers Anne Aghion, Anne Makepeace and Nancy Heikin)

Meanwhile, back home in Lakeville, Connecticut my sweet and faithful dog Cassius waited patiently – or more likely impatiently – for my return. He and my husband Charles must have had some good male bonding going on, but I like to think they missed me. We have had Cassius for a few years now, a Louisiana-born pup we found through Labs4Rescue who has made our house a home.

To see more pictures of these events, please scroll down to the Slideshow

What a weekend I’ve just had! Still jet-lagged from Saturday’s flight, I screened We Still Live Here at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles on Sunday for one of the many free Community Cinema screenings organized by Independent Lens. Desiree Gutierrez, an Outreach Coordinator for Independent Lens, had arranged the event with co-sponsorship of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center. For a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, we had a terrific and very diverse crowd; including a Wampanoag man far from his home in Mashpee, Massachusetts. After the film, we had a lively discussion moderated by Dr. Mishuana Goeman (Seneca), a professor at UCLA. (To read the Autry’s blog about the film, please Click Here).

The next day, I found myself inside the Pitchess Detention center in Castaic, California, a medium security prison that is the oldest jail in LA county. The setting as we drove in was beautiful — fields and mountains stretched away in the distance. Then we came to the prison walls, 25 feet high, topped with razor wire, guard towers, heavily armed personnel, doors clanging open and shut as we were let in. I hadn’t been in jail since I was 16, arrested in Philadelphia for… but that’s another story. We entered a room packed with perhaps 250 men in prison uniforms listening intently

to a dynamic presenter talking about… actually I was too distracted and overwhelmed to take in what he was saying. Desiree and I were introduced and as I looked out over this sea of men of every color, I wondered what they thought of my film (they had watched it a few nights before), what they got out of it, how it related to their lives. Though many of the men looked tough and a bit scary to me, they were very polite, focused, interested, even passionate about the film. There were lots of questions about the true history of the Pilgrims and the

Wampanoags, about Jessie’s dreams and the miracle of bringing a culture back to life. One man was inspired to find out more about his Blackfoot grandmother; another said the film reminded him of redemption and being able to start over. I was so jet-lagged and disoriented that I kept losing track of the questions, especially the two and three part ones, but the guys were patient and accepting. I was extremely moved by their interest, their thoughtfulness, their curiosity and intelligence, and wondered what had brought them to this place. I hoped they would soon be free and make better choices on the outside.

That night we drove south to another world — Orange, California — where we screened We Still Live Here at Chapman University, a Christian college in the heart of Orange County. The audience was mostly film students keen to know how to negotiate the prickly path to becoming a filmmaker. They were eager, open, excited about their projects and very enthusiastic and curious about We Still Live Here. It was nice to end the two-day screening frenzy with those fresh open faces, the students so excited about telling stories on film. I often tell students, “If you can do anything else in your life professionally and be happy, do that!” because being a filmmaker is so fraught with uncertainty, financial deprivation, creative agony, and tensions and pressures that make having a normal family life nearly impossible. But I didn’t say any of that to these kids, perhaps because of their passionate enthusiasm, but more likely because I had just had two days of filmmaker heaven, of having the story I had labored over for nearly four years seen, heard, appreciated, making a difference. All the hardships and challenges of creating We Still Live Here dissolved in the light of these experiences — the very reasons we filmmakers devote our lives to this work. I wanted to say, yes, do it! Find those stories you have to tell, and bring them into the world.

When they get noticed at all, they’re the supporting players in every Thanksgiving play or pageant. Rarely, if ever, do we hear them speak.

But the Wampanoag — the Cape Cod Indian tribe that famously helped the original Pilgrims survive in the New World in the early 1600s — use their own long-unspoken words to make a powerful statement in Anne Makepeace’s new documentary film, We Still Live Here, showing at the Autry on Sunday. And their standard-bearer is Mae, a child with hair the color of honey.

The film, which showed on PBS’s “Independent Lens” on November 17,  tells of how, after hearing her people talk to her in an unfamiliar language in a vision, Jessie Little Doe Baird, a Mashpee Wampanoag social worker, began in 1993 to help her tribe reclaim its language. At that point, no living speaker had existed for more than a century. Little Doe Baird navigated tribal politics to get the members behind the project, the paperwork for a one-year research fellowship at MIT to get training, and centuries-old documents in the village halls to find a starting point.
READ MORE ….

Read the latest newsletter from Makepeace Productions
Contents:
· We Still Live Here screens at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, December 4
· Purchase We Still Live Here on DVD
· Viewer feedback on Facebook—Post your comment now

Like many children, Mae Alice Baird can sing a song, play a game, or tell a story. The difference is that she can do it in Wampanoag (Wôpanâak). If the name of this language sounds vaguely familiar to you, chances are that you heard about it at some point in history class, probably around this time of year. It was spoken by Native Americans back when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Although they might not know the name of these Native people, many Americans celebrate the Wampanoag each year at Thanksgiving. But very few are aware that the group’s descendants still live on their ancestral homelands in Southeastern Massachusetts.
(Read more …)

THIS MONTH … OVER 60
SCREENINGS NATIONWIDE
Find a Community Cinema Event near you for a live screening and discussion by visiting MakepeaceProductions.com/screenings

We had a fantastic screening at M.I.T. last Thursday night – packed hall, very diverse audience, huge enthusiasm for the film and wonderful discussion afterwards. The highlight of the Q+A was when Jessie Little Doe Baird and Norvin Richards demonstrated how to build a Wampanoag word. Their joy in the exercise was palpable, and the audience was mesmerized. (Enjoy the slideshow; all photos—Anne O’Brien)

The screening was sponsored by several MIT departments: Office of Minority Education, Office of Student Activities, the Technology and Culture Forum, and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, and was part of the MIT Women’s and Gender Studies & Women in Film and Video: New England Chicks Make Flicks film series. Thank you to all for a fabulous night! (more…)

Have you checked out our facebook page recently?

View photos + read about the New York City screening of WE STILL LIVE here at the Margaret Mead Film Festival. And don’t forget to “like” us!

Michael Davenport

WE STILL LIVE HERE: Breathing Life Into A Culture

What defines a culture? Is it the people, the language, the traditions? Over the course of human history, many cultures and entire civilizations have all but completely vanished from the face of the earth, leaving little to nothing for future generations to know about them. At some point in time the very last memories and experiences of these cultures passed away with the generations that held them. It is difficult to begin to imagine how many cultures remain buried in time, never to be discovered by future generations, but even more difficult to imagine what it would take to uncover these lost realities.
POST A COMMENT / READ MORE ….

The Economist Film Project is an initiative by The Economist, in partnership with PBS NewsHour, to share the work of independent, international documentary filmmakers with global audiences interested in learning more about our world and its untold stories.
Read More Online

“… The story drew me so powerfully because of my own background – I am descended from those Puritan settlers who co-opted Wampanoag lands or worse – and partly because of the intensely passionate dedication and commitment that Jessie and other members of the Wampanoag Reclamation Project have for bringing their language home.”
—Anne Makepeace
The Wampanoag nation of southeastern Massachusetts ensured the survival of the first English settlers in New England, and lived to regret it.

We Still Live Here – Âs Nutayuneân tells the story of the revival of the Wampanoag language and culture, as an indomitable Wampanoag linguist, Jessie Little Doe Baird, sets out to restore the Wampanoag language, and by so doing, heal the bitter wounds of the past. Read the entire article

A story of language reclamation may not seem that astonishing, but filmmaker Anne Makepeace hopes that the film-loving community and those who are devoted to public television will find We Still Live Here—Âs Nutayuneân to be a mesmerizing story. Read more and enjoy the beautiful online layout.

​Anne Makepeace is quick to tell people that the Wampanoag is the tribe that greeted the Mayflower. After all, what better way to quickly illustrate how forgotten this tribe is? Almost everyone in America knows the people of the Mayflower broke bread with a Native American tribe, but most people probably don’t know who they were.

In her film We Still Live Here, screening as part of the 8th Annual Indigenous Film and Arts Festival, Makepeace helps the Wampanoag tell the story of their language.

Read entire article

I was delighted that We Still Live Here was chosen as the opening night film at the first ever Arlington International Film Festival, and thrilled to receive the Best Documentary award at the screening last Thursday night. The fabulous Wampanoag linguist Jessie Little Doe Baird and MIT linguistics professor Norvin Richards joined me for the very lively Q+A. Jessie and Norvin have been working together on the Wampanoag dictionary for more than a decade.

Next up:
October 13 (Thursday)
8th Annual Indigenous Film & Arts Festival (Denver, Colorado)

October 16 (Sunday): 3:30pm
Native Spirit Festival—The Film Festival of Indigenous Peoples (London)

October 28 (Friday)
National Indian Education Assoc.—Indigenous Language Forum (Albuquerque)

The 2011 Colorado Indigenous Film Festival The Indigenous Film & Arts Festival begins Wednesday, October 12th, and We Still Live Here screens on the 13th.  This is its eighth year, and Colorado Public Radio film critic Howie Movshovitz says the festival is still an overlooked gem.

Audio link: Listen in for more about the festival and We Still Live Here

We Still Live Here by the non-indigenous filmmaker Anne Makepeace, opens on Jessie Little Doe Baird, a Wampanoag woman, driving on Cape Cod. She describes her sudden realization that all the place names – Sagemore, Sippewisset, Mashpee, Shawmut, Chappaquidick – are Wampanoag words, yet none of the living Wampanoag people spoke the language. Baird got herself to MIT, studied linguistics, learned, among other things that the first bible published in the New World was written in Wampanoag, and she has now set up a project to revive the language. Her daughter is the first native speaker of Wampanoag in generations. What you learn from “We Still Live Here” makes your jaw drop. It’s a thrilling film.

Slide show of WE STILL LIVE HERE at Plimoth Plantation,
September 24, 2011. (All photos by Anne O'Brien)

On Saturday, September 24, WE STILL LIVE HERE screened to a large and enthusiastic audience at the historic Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts.

The screening exceeded all expectations and was a momentous event, with a record turnout and five members of the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project joining in the Q+A, as can be seen in the slide show.

Danielle Hill, Mashpee Wampanoag; Michelle Nuey and son, Mashpee Wampanoag; Linda Coombs, Aquinnah Wampanoag; Anne Makepeace; Russell Peters, Jr.,Mashpee Wampanoag (Photo: Anne O'Brien)

Danielle Hill spoke movingly of the experience of learning her people’s Native tongue, which she began just a year ago. Michelle Nuey sang a lullaby in Wampanoag on stage to her amazingly composed son Myels, a lullaby she had written for him when he was a baby. Myels said simply, “I’m proud to be Wampanoag.” Linda Coombs as always was brilliant and wry and full of heart, and Rusty Peters spoke passionately about the language and of his nearly 20 year commitment to it. I was proud to be there. And of course the symbolism of that location, on the very spot where the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims first made contact four centuries ago, gave the event a deeper meaning, which perhaps the Wampanoag would consider one more element in closing the circle.

We Still Live Here screens Columbus Day, Monday October 10, from 7-9pm, at the Concord Unitarian Universalist Church, in Concord, New Hampshire.

Free & everyone welcome

For full details, view an enlarged version of the Film Series Poster

Directions and map

Listen in as WATD’s Rob Hakala interviews Wampanoag native speaker Melanie Roderick, who speaks with great insight and enthusiasm about the Language Reclamation Project and “We Still Live Here” the documentary film from Anne Makepeace that chronicles the work of Jessie Little Doe Baird and the reclamation of the Wampanoag language.

A terrific radio voice … Check it out on YouTube

The Arlington International Film Festival has awarded We Still Live Here the honor of BEST DOCUMENTARY.

The Film will screen on Opening Night (Friday, October 6, at 7:00pm) at the Regent Theater in Arlington, Massachusetts. For complete details, please visit the Arlington International Film Festival website.

It’s the very definition of a nightmare, an unpleasant dream that creates an overwhelming feeling of despair and anxiety, followed by great and unrelieved sadness.
You have something you need to say, but you can’t find the words.
Or you know the words, but your mouth has been sewn shut.
That, some would argue, is what happened to the Wampanoag people and perhaps to most of the native cultures found in America in the 17th century.
In 1620, when the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, the Wampanoag had a rich culture, a colorful language and centuries of tradition. After the King Philip War concluded in 1676 only two of their 69 communities survived, their beliefs were assailed, and their spoken language became a whisper, then went silent.
But award-winning documentary filmmaker Anne Makepeace says she was attracted to the story of the Wampanoag’s fight to resurrect their spoken language, because it was, she insists, a story of hope and inspiration. Read the entire article.