Sunday, June 14
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Regal Gallery Place

701 7th St NW, Washington, DC 20001

for all screenings

Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]

Film Languages

Anishinaabemowin, English

Co-Directors

Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil

Executive Producers

Francene Blythe-Lewis, Carrie Lozano, Lois Vossen, Tiffany Sia, Ted Kennedy, Elizabeth Weatherford

Supervising Producer

Michael Kinomoto

Producers

Steve Holmgren, Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, Grace Remington, Jacque Clark, Franny Alfano

Associate Producer

Nadia Rubalcava

Editors

Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil

Cinematographers

Zack Khalil, Adam Khalil, Jacque Clark, Shaandiin Tome, Sky Hopinka, Bayley Sweitzer, Christopher Yepez, Oresti Tsonopoulos, Samuli Haavisto, Noah Elliott Morrison

Sound

Jacque Clark, Zack Khalil

AANIKOOBIJIGAN [ANCESTOR/GREAT-GRANDPARENT/GREAT-GRANDCHILD] documents the emotional and vital work of MACPRA (Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance). This alliance—made up of repatriation specialists representing all Michigan tribes—works to bring their Ancestors and funerary objects home from settler colonial institutions such as museums, libraries, and archives.

Adam and Zack Khalil’s monumental and formally daring film follows the urgent struggle to rebury Indigenous human remains held in sterile storage, laying bare the history of Indigenous collections and the ongoing effort to recognize and enforce the laws intended to facilitate their return to the communities from which they were taken. Using an essayistic approach alongside vérité portraits, the film honors the individuals who carry out this demanding and deeply emotional labor of return.

Co-director, Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]

Adam Khalil, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is an artist whose practice subverts traditional forms of image-making through humor, relation, and transgression. Khalil is the co-director and co-editor of the feature documentary INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place./ it flies. falls./] (2016), which premiered as the closing night film of the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight, and the experimental documentary short THE VIOLENCE OF A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT SECRETS (2018), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Khalil is a core contributor to New Red Order and a co-founder of COUSINS Collective.

Khalil’s work has been exhibited and screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Tate Modern, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Walker Art Center, Lincoln Center, Palais de Tokyo, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Creative Time, Toronto Biennial 2019, Whitney Biennial 2019, Sharjah Biennial 15, and Counterpublic Triennial 2023, among other institutions. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including a Creative Capital Award, Herb Alpert Award, Sundance Art of Nonfiction, Jerome Artist Fellowship, Cinereach support, and the Gates Millennium Scholarship.

Co-director, Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]

Zack Khalil, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a filmmaker and artist whose work centers Indigenous narratives in the present while looking toward the future through innovative nonfiction forms. Khalil is a core contributor to New Red Order, a public-secret society that interrogates and complicates attraction to indigeneity while inviting non-Indigenous accomplices into a shared examination of Indigenous agency.

Khalil is the co-director and co-editor of the feature documentary INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place./ it flies. falls./] (2016), which premiered as the closing night film of the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight, and the experimental documentary short THE VIOLENCE OF A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT SECRETS (2018), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. He also works as a video editor, most recently co-editing Alison O’Daniel’s feature film THE TUBA THIEVES (2023), which premiered at Sundance.

His work has been exhibited and screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, New York Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Walker Art Center, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Creative Time, Toronto Biennial 2019, Whitney Biennial 2019, the 59th Venice Biennale, Sharjah Biennial 15, and Counterpublic Triennial 2023, among other institutions. He is the recipient of fellowships and grants including a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, a United States Artists Fellowship, Sundance Art of Nonfiction, and the Gates Millennium Scholarship.