Film Review: "Gather"

 

“The red nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world, a world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations, a world longing for light again.”

--- Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota Nation

The American colonists may have fled Mother England in search of freedom, but they wasted no time denying freedom to others – first, to the natives they found here, and later to imported persons (mostly Africans) dragged here in chains as slaves.

In the short documentary “Gather,” Director Sanjay Rawal relates the sorry history of murder (many colonists shot indigenous people on sight), starvation (some 60 million buffalo were slaughtered to starve the Lakota nation in South Dakota into submission), and forced assimilation, an attempt to deny their cultural identity.

But the majority of “Gather” is more positive, documenting a growing movement among contemporary indigenous Americans to reclaim the territory and cultural identity the colonists tried to eliminate.

The film shows a meeting of those who return to tribal lands to meet and organize. For many, it is their first visit in years. For some, like Lakota high schooler Elsie DuBray, it’s a revelation. 

“It’s just so cool when I walk out and see the animals,” she reports. “They look like they belong here.” DuBray will become a scientist, studying biochemistry – and minoring in Native Studies – at Stanford. 

Food takes center stage, as we watch a new indigenous restaurant – Café Gozhóó – being installed in a deserted gas station.  The proprietor will be Chef Nephi Craig. His culinary training is classical French, but now he has returned to his roots. It is, as one elder puts it, “reintroducing young people to our traditions, land and ways of healing.”

A group of young Yurok tribesmen of Northern California are struggling to save their livelihood, which depends on fish from the Klamath River and has been threatened by the removal of a dam.

There is much work to do. But these folks seem ready, even excited about the struggle, and Rawal leaves us with hope for a good resolution. As one puts it, “The Industrial Revolution is over. Now to survive, we need to be part of the Restorative Revolution.”

Recommended audience: All Americans

"Gather" is available Sep. 8 on iTunes and Amazon

Genre: Documentary

MPAA Rating: Not rated

Studio: Illumine Group

Runtime: 74 minutes

Directed by: Sanjay Rawal