[Below begins Anne's day-by-day chronicle of the two-week long Southern Circuit Tour of her documentary We Still Live Here—plus wonderful slideshows & videos of all the good times. The tour includes South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Louisiana.]

Many New Photos! … Great Stories! … Scroll down & enjoy!

After a sweet sad goodbye to my husband Charles and my dog Cassius, I flew to Charleston, South Carolina, to begin my Southern Circuit tour.

Charleston was balmy after the frozen north, and the wonderful old house where I stayed made me feel that I was really in the Old South. I had a corner room just off the balcony. Street life was lively, with lots of boutiques and shops and restaurants, though chains like Pottery Barn, J Crew and Williams Sonoma have begun to invade the beautiful Southern architecture.

We had a wonderful screening at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art,  part of the College of Charleston.

The audience was small — 60 or 70 people — but very enthusiastic with many smart and insightful questions. I was grateful to all who came, as we were competing with the Food and Wine Festival, the Charleston Film Festival, and a ballet, and and this was the first day of Spring Break at the college.

Lizz Bissell and her fabulous interns helped with the screening and with selling DVDs afterwards.

After the screening we gathered in the lobby for delicious cupcakes and interesting conversation. I was charmed by the diversity of the crowd — a beautiful young couple from Cuba, a Chippewa from Minnesota, a Ukrainian real estate agent and former filmmaker, and many more. It was a great night. A good time was had by all!

The sun came out on Sunday morning, my first day off on the tour. Downtown Thomasville was quiet, except for the Savannah Moon cafe where I had breakfast. Then I headed to the Florida coast.

I had made arrangements to drive to Apalachicola, an old fishing village on the Gulf Coast for two days and nights at the Gibson Inn where I am ensconced right now as I write. I love the names of the towns down here in this northwestern part of Florida – Panacea, Sopchoppy, Apalachicola.

Apalachicola is a lovely old fishing town, with an intriguing combination of funky shacks, old southern plantation style houses, great restaurants, and a very active fishing and oystering industry.

Today I’m going to head out to St. George Island where I may get blown off the narrow strip of sand by the high winds I can see outside – palm tree waving wildly just outside my window.

Tomorrow, the wild and crazy schedule begins again – flying to Memphis in the morning for screening in Tupelo that night, then to Greenville for screening in Clemson, Georgia, finally landing in Montgomery for my screening there on Thursday night. From there I’ll be driving all over Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina for three more screenings, until I fly to Savannah and then the final screening in Alexandria LA. So I am going to thoroughly enjoy this day of total R&R!

On my free day in the little Gulf fishing town of the Apalachicola, I headed to the white sands of St. George Island. When not sound asleep on the beach I was treated to a wonderful parade of sea life: a heron standing on one leg, pelicans on land and sea, dolphins, even a loon! That night I dined on fried conch cakes with limeade sauce and mango slaw at a restaurant called “Up the Creek,” overlooking the Apalachicola River, and felt blessed.

First up in the slideshow is The Gibson Inn where I stayed in Apalachicola. Then … A day at the beach – not as warm as it looks, though. The air was about 60 degrees and breezy; the water was frigid!

Up early for the drive to Tallahassee airport and flights to Memphis, Tennessee, where I was intrigued by all the Elvis signs everywhere. My screening that night was scheduled for 7pm in Tupelo, Mississippi, about 110 miles southeast of Memphis. I stopped off halfway for a nap at the Courtyard Inn, next to Aunt Whooey’s Kitchen in the little town of Holly Springs, Mississippi, where I had decided to spend the night.

It was early spring in northern Mississippi—magnolias, fruit trees, and forsythia in bloom everywhere!

As I drove into Tupelo, I confess that my heart sank, especially since I had planned to have dinner somewhere close to the theater. The LINK Centre is on a long strip of MacDonald’s, Wendy’s, Walmarts, and other dispiriting chains. However, the warm welcome I received when I got to the Centre changed everything. Melanie Deas, director of the theater at the Centre, and members of the Tupelo Film Commission were really excited about the screening, especially since they had spent time in Wampanoag country.

In the middle of the film., Melanie’s sister, Meredith, recognized the name Vanderhoop (there are many Wampanoag Vanderhoops in the film) and texted her old Georgetown University friend Naushon Vanderhoop to ask if she was related! And of course she is, being from Aquinnah. An amazing connection from Tupelo screening to Washington DC and Aquinnah.

Up again at dawn and back to Memphis for my flight to Greenville, South Carolina, and the drive to my screening at Clemson university. I had dinner with a group of students and their teacher, Southern Circuit coordinator Amy Monaghan, at an Iranian restaurant—delicious lamb shank and grilled asparagus—and then headed to the screening. It was fun being with these wildly enthusiastic students. I could tell they were really with the film, though they were a bit shy about asking questions.

Afterwards, I spoke at length with a professor from Uganda who was astonished at the linguistic parallels between Wampanoag and his own culture. Commenting on the part in the film where Jessie reveals that the word used to translate the concept “to lose one’s land” which was unknown to Wampanoags when the settlers arrived, is the same as the word meaning to fall down off your feet, the Ugandan said that their word for losing one’s language is the same as to fall down. He said that there are 56 different languages in Uganda, all fiercely defended by the communities that speak them. One never knows whom you are going to met wherever you go!

Next blog entry, arriving in Montgomery on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery — hundreds of marchers arriving to protest voter ID and anti-immigrant laws … and then my screening at the historic Capri theater.

On Day 7 of the Southern Circuit tour,  I pulled out of Montgomery airport in the early afternoon into pure gridlock. What was all the traffic at this hour?  I noticed groups of people walking along the road, many looking Hispanic or Native American, some carrying flags or banners. They were converging on a big tent and thought, is this a pow wow? How amazing!

Then I noticed the signs and t-shirts that read, Stop HB 56, We are the 99, Proud to be Union, I Am a Man, We Are One. I stopped and talked to a man named Samuel who told me that the people marching along the road had just walked all the way from Selma to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr.’s march 47 years ago that day, and to protest the draconian Alabama anti-immigrant law HB 56, in particular its potentially devastating effect on voting rights. Near the end of their march, they were gathering outside Montgomery to prepare for the march on the Alabama State Capitol the next day.

That night, as I screened We Still Live Here at the Capri Theater downtown, I thought about the marchers a few miles away, their heart and determination to honor Dr. King and to keep fighting for a better world. At first these thoughts made what I was doing seem insignificant — screening a documentary to a few people — but my passion for this film and its story soon rose up  and replaced that feeling with a sense of history and purpose. Aren’t we all fighting for the same thing? A more just world where the word freedom has deep personal meaning, where diversity is honored and valued and the many unique communities in our midst are appreciated and prized as part of the rich fabric of our country, and then I felt part of the marchers with their banners saying, We Are One.

After a good night’s sleep at the wonderful Lattice Inn, I headed to the Alabama State Capitol, arriving just as the first marchers were arriving. The drizzling rain didn’t seem to dampen the high spirits of the crowd. Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson were up on stage to welcome them, and a gospel group rant out with an awe inspiring “I’m gonna let nobody turn me round…” as the crowd gathered. How amazing to bear witness to this momentous day.

Later, Martin McCaffery, Director of the Capri Theater, also took me to see the Civil Rights Memorial, the Rosa Parks Museum, and Hank Williams’ grave. I was glad to see all of these, especially Maya Lin’s awesome installation,  but my heart drew me back to the demonstration still going on downtown. I returned there just in time to see Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, and many other leaders gather on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol and sing the iconic and still deeply meaningful, We Shall Overcome.

Day 9 began with mad blogging about the Montgomery march, including editing video that I had mistakenly shot upside down on my iPhone, a whole new editing challenge. Luckily I had my lovely room at the Lattice Inn to work in, and the kindly innkeeper Jim let me stay until I had finished.

I had a night off and a three hour drive from Montgomery to my next screening in Winder, Georgia, so arranged to stay in the university town of Auburn, Alabama, that night. As I drove into town, demonstrators waved signs for Ron Paul at me, reminding me that the Alabama primary was happening very soon and that I could be within a few miles of one of the comical though frightening characters battling it out in the south: Newt, Rick, Mitt, and maybe Ron too.

Waling around town, I was assaulted by talking light poles issuing peremptory orders: WAIT!  WAIT!  WAIT! Beep Beep Beep. They must have had movement sensors, as whenever I got within 50 feet of a crosswalk the orders began again. I wondered if there had been an outbreak of kamikaze pedestrians or blind drivers or both; mostly I obeyed.

That night, after a fantastic dinner of salmon salad at the Amsterdam cafe, I noticed some musicians entering a funky little bookstore and went in to find out what was going on. It turned out they were setting up to play, and since I love the dobro and pretty much any country or mountain music, I sat down to listen. They were great! Fantastic guy on drums and blues harp, awesome dobro player who was really fun to watch, great bass guitarist, a singer who thought he was cooler than he was but oh well, even a trombone, an unusual addition to say the least!

After a good night’s sleep at the Crenshaw Inn in Auburn, I drove through Atlanta to the little town of Winder, Georgia, for my afternoon screening there. Winder struck me as a town that might have been on its way up before 2008, but is struggling now. My host, Cultural Director Don Wildsmith (aptly named) is dedicated to revitalizing the town through a lively arts program. He helped bring We Still Live Here and other Southern Circuit films to the beautiful Winder Cultural Arts Center.

Wonder of wonders, I found the Chatterrbox Cafe right there in Winder! I always wondered where Garrison Keillor got that name for his Lake Woebegone tales, and now I know.

The audience was small but wildly enthusiastic and appreciative, and I was glad to have visited Winder and to have met Don and others who are so dedicated to bringing the arts to their community.

Looking at the pictures now, I can see how tired I was getting by this point in the journey. I had driven through six states; Winder would be my sixth screening in nine days, with four more to go.

After the screening, I set out at 5pm on a three hour drive from Georgia through South and North Carolina to Asheville to meet my brother Roger for dinner. I followed him home over the windy Appalachian mountain roads to stay at his home in Marshall, NC, with a night to rest up for my screening the next day 50 miles northwest  in Tennessee.

I woke up in my brother Roger’s sunny house to the sound of oatmeal boiling and the Big Pine Creek rushing along (he literally lives up the creek). Worked for a while in a hopeless attempt to keep up with obligations, phone calls etc. At noon we headed across the French Broad River for lunch and then to Hot Springs for a hike up Lover’s Leap. Hiking along the Appalachian Trail, I was pondering the fact that hundreds of miles north this same trail winds through Salisbury Connecticut, for 13 miles, passing less than a mile from my home in Lakeville. Made me homesick for Charles and Cassius.

We had a good Thai dinner in Johnson City with film professor Shara Kay Lange and her husband Dan, both lovely and friendly and interesting folks that I wished I had had more time to get to know, then headed to the auditorium. The audience, a mix of students, professors, and people from the community, were really enthusiastic and engaged in the film and the issues it raises. After the lively Q+A and a 90 minute drive, I was still wired when we arrived back at my brother’s house to sleep.

We woke up to a rainy day in the mountains, drove down to Marshall for tea and emailing at actor/producer Tony Torn’s Good Stuff Café, then headed out for a day of adventure. First stop, Cherokee, the commercial and governmental center for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, looking forward to seeing the New Kituwah Cherokee language immersion school that we featured on the Our Mother Tongues website, a companion site for We Still Live Here. (Please visit www.OurMotherTongues.org)

We met Gill Jackson, director and one of the founders of New Kituwah, for lunch, then headed to the school. There, all classes are taught in the Cherokee language, and English is not allowed. We were thrilled and honored to be invited to visit the school.

These second grade students have been part of New Kituwah since they were babies when it was founded. It was fun  to watch them engage with their teacher during a lesson about half notes, full notes, quarter notes, all in Cherokee. New Kituwah has become a model school for many Native communities working to preserve and revitalize their languages. The Wampanoag Language Reclamation Project, featured in We Still Live Here, is hoping to found an immersion school in 2015, where all subjects will be taught in Wampanoag. Like New Kituwah, the plan is to begin with kindergarten and add a grade every year so that students can continue their education in their language as they move up through the grades.

Cherokee elder Myrtle Driver is translating Charlotte’s Web into the Cherokee syllabary! They are planning to record all of the voices and have already cast the roles according to the personalities the school’s staff; Gill will be reading Wilbur! This should be a delightful addition to the curriculum.

We also met with Bo Lossie, a teacher at New Kituwah who is also featured on the  Our Mother Tongues Videos Page, where he talks about discovering the true meaning of his grandfather’s words. Here he is holding a picture here of that same grandfather.

After our great visit to Cherokee, we headed down to our screening at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina. So interesting to see the Cherokee on the street signs!

We had a great dinner at Guadalupe’s with our host Lorie Davis and with Tom Belt, Cherokee elder and language instructor at WCU, and linguist Hartwell Francis, Director of the Cherokee Language Program there. Then as we were pulling in to the University Center for the screening, there was Gill Jackson, come down to join us. He is incredibly busy, so it was a terrific surprise to have him there.

We had a great screening and discussion, and a very comfortable night at our comparatively posh digs at the Chancellor’s Guest House. No rest for the weary though—we left at dawn the next morning for Asheville airport and my flight to Savannah.

Stay tuned for the next blog entry: Screenings in Savannah, Georgia and Alexandria, Louisiana; then home at last to Charles and Cassius.

After a wild five days of driving through Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and back to North Carolina again, it was a huge relief to board the plane to Savannah, especially since I planned to stay at the beach on nearby Tybee Island with a whole day and night off.

After a long nap at my sweet B+B, I wandered along the beach to the mouth of the Savannah River where it pours out through tidal marshlands into the sea. The temperature was balmy, the beach not yet crowded with kids on spring break, as it would be soon.

For dinner, I had delicious crab soup at AJ’s Dockside Restaurant and watched the sun set over the marshes and the river tides. Then back to the Beachside B+B to rest up before the next day’s screening in Savannah.

College kids were converging on Tybee Island for their annual rite of spring as I drove past tidal flats and sparkling rivers into Savannah for my sound check at the beautifully restored Lucas Theater. After meeting my hosts Erin Muller and Meaghan Walsh Gerard and checking the projection and sound, I had a few hours to explore Savannah on my own.

Everyone had warned me that hordes of people were heading into town for St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Apparently St. Patrick’s is bigger in Savannah than in New York City. I puzzled over this, thinking about Scarlett O’Hara and wondering if Georgia was seriously Irish. Everything in town was green, even the fountains! Cops were swarming everywhere too, in preparation, one of them told me, for the drunken revels soon to come.

Every screening has its surprises, and there were two great ones in Savannah. One was a handsome 13 or 14 year old boy (I can never tell ages any more!) who asked the most probing questions during the Q+A, and later in the lobby told me that he absolutely loves the Latin language, is studying it in depth at a special school, and is seriously annoyed that Italians are not reviving Latin as a living language. The other was a tall African American guy who turned out to be Jeremy Foreman, Executive Director of HandsOn Southeast Georgia who works with ITVS on their Community Cinema program. He and I will be Skyping on Tuesday after a screening of We Still Live Here that he has organized at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. The film goes on and on!

I would like to have stayed in Savannah longer, but no rest for the weary—next stop, Alexandria, Louisiana, for the tenth and last screening of the tour.

Louisiana looked lovely and green from the plane, although there was no sign of a St. Patrick’s Day celebration when I landed. Different state, different country. I was glad to be staying with a local couple, Dr. David Holcombe and his wife Nicole, and that they would transport me from the airport to their house and to the screening. No more getting lost and trying to read my iPhone GPS while driving!

Alexandria is an interesting town on the Red River that has seen better days. Most of it was burned down during the Civil War, and when England Airforce Base closed in 1992, the town suffered again. But there is a valiant core group working to revitalize the downtown, bringing artists, musicians and filmmakers to spice things up. The Holcombes had worked hard to get the word out; getting a feature article in the local paper’s arts section, and contacting several Native American tribes nearby. As we arrived, I was pleased to see the small Black Box theater filling up; people seemed really excited about the film.

During the screening, I walked by the Red River and then explored the deserted streets of downtown Alexandria. There were a lot of empty storefronts, some clothing stores, an Irish pub that wasn’t especially lively, and then I happened upon the Tamp and Grind (what a name!), a funky little coffee house with a colorful bottle tree hanging outside. The cafe was packed with friendly high school kids listening raptly to a talented young guitar player named Benjamin Richey. He had lightning fingers and sang a raspy rendition of House of the Rising Sun just before I had to head back for the theater for the Q+A.

The discussion turned out to be one of the most emotional and engaging of the whole Southern Circuit tour. One woman was almost in tears as she described growing up with the Aquinnah Wampanoag on Martha’s Vineyard and her friends in the Vanderhoop family. Several African Americans in the audience praised the film lavishly, reacting to the Wampanoag’s story with deep compassion and admiration. A young woman named Akeshia Singleton from the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, wondered how her people could revive their language. She said that her tribe has no speakers, but they do have a comprehensive dictionary that could help them get started. I said, you need a Jessie, someone who has the passion and energy and smarts and stamina to make it happen, and maybe that person is you! She certainly struck me as a person of passion and intelligence, and I hope she will decide to set out on this path.

This morning, I said good-bye to my hosts as they headed off to a day of Czech folk dancing in a nearby town – once again, you just can’t make these things up!  The tour has been great, but now I am really looking forward to getting home tonight and seeing at last my beloved Charles and my crazy, much-loved Cassius.

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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.
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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.
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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…)

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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.
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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.
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“… 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.

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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.