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A DOCUMENTARY FILM ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND THE PLANET TODAY
A film by Gwendolen Cates | Original soundtrack by Pura Fé
The Doctrine of Discovery is the term for 15th-century decrees issued by the Vatican that authorized conquest and colonization and later became enshrined in U.S. law. The film follows a group of Indigenous teenagers from Minneapolis/St. Paul who travel to Rome to meet with Vatican officials and advocate for the repudiation of the Doctrine. Also featured are Indigenous activists in Aotearoa/New activists in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Guatemala, New Caledonia, and Puerto Rico. The film exposes how the Doctrine of Discovery has targeted communities of color, was the origin of the transatlantic slave trade, and enables corporate forces driving the climate crisis.
Gwendolen Cates is an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker, photographer and author. She is currently completing the feature documentary THE DOCTRINE about the Doctrine of Discovery. Her first multi-award-winning film WATER FLOWING TOGETHER about Navajo-Puerto Rican New York City Ballet principal dancer Jock Soto was nationally broadcast on PBS Independent Lens. Other productions include the award-winning film THE GOOD MIND (2016) which follows Onondaga Nation leaders as they fight to protect their sovereignty, culture and the environment while seeking justice for ancestral lands stolen by New York State in violation of a 1794 treaty with George Washington; WE ARE UNARMED (2020) bears witness to the historic resistance at Standing Rock, going behind the scenes with three Indigenous women who had central roles; and the short film GUSWENTA: RENEWING THE TWO ROW WAMPUM (2014) which documents the epic paddling journey from the Onondaga Nation to the United Nations in New York City during the summer of 2013 on the anniversary of the first agreement or treaty between Indigenous people and European settlers on Turtle Island. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Gwendolen was embedded with the U.S. military as a photographer for Time Inc., returned for Parade Magazine in 2004, and with the World Monuments Fund in 2009. From 2008-2011 she traveled to Iraq and Syria several times for an ongoing film and photography project titled MOURNING IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN about Mesopotamian cultural heritage and Indigenous communities (Yezidi, Assyrian, Mandaean.) Originally an editorial photographer, she has photographed countless public figures including George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Serena Williams, Michael Jordan, Sean Connery, Michael Douglas, Alec Baldwin, Madeleine Albright, Whoopi Goldberg, Wilma Mankiller, and Rosa Parks, for clients such as Rolling Stone, Life, Time, Men's Journal, Premiere, People, Parade, GQ, Sony, ABC, and Vanity Fair. Her critically acclaimed book INDIAN COUNTRY (Grove Press 2001) inspired Oprah to begin a series on Native Americans. She studied cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago, and lives in New York City.
Sponsored by:
Departments of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures (AMESALL), Cinema Studies, Religion, and the Humanities Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences