EXCLUSIVE:The award-winning documentary Long line of ladies, about a 13-year-old Native American girl’s coming of age ceremony in the Karuk tradition, will premiere on the New York Times Op-Docs channels Tuesday, the first day of Indigenous Peoples Day.
The film directed by Shaandiin Tome and Oscar winner Rayka Zehtabchi offers an intimate look at the experience of Ahtyirahm “Ahty”Allen, a member the Karuk Tribe in Northern California as she prepares to go “Ihuk” or Flower Dance – a once-dormant ceremony that “takes place after young women in her community have their first period.”
As part of the ceremony, Ahty will fast for three and a half days and wear a taáv, a kind of feathered veil obscuring her sight, for four days. The 22-minute long film doesn’t show the actual ceremony itself – “the filmmakers refrained from filming the event out of respect for the traditions of the community and the privacy of the participants,”According to a statement about the film. It shows Ahty’s family, community, and the steps she took to get to this moment, which symbolically marks her entry into womanhood.
“You’re blinded for four days and you’re reflecting on your inner self,” Ahty’s father explains to her about the ceremony, as he hand crafts the feathered blinder. “Then we remove your taáv and you’re reborn as a woman.”
“The ceremony was held for generations without interruption,”The film’s opening text displays the following: “until the violence and destruction brought on by the Gold Rush, where Native American girls and women were victims of sexual violence.”The tradition was revived by a group Karuk people in the early 1990s “to once again honor their girls as they transition into womanhood.”
Long Line of Lady-Friendly ProductsIt premiered at Sundance, where it won top jury prizes at several festivals, including SXSW, San Francisco International Film Festival and Seattle International Film Festival. This qualifies it for Academy Award consideration as Best Documentary Short Film. It also received the Jenni Berebitsky Legacy Award at the IndyShorts International Film Festival and was recently named to both DOC NYC’s Shorts Shortlist and the Cinema Eye Honors Shorts List for Best Nonfiction Short Film.
Concerning Oscar eligibility, a release was noted. “If the film were to receive an Academy Award nomination, Tome, who is from the Diné community, would become the first-ever Native American director to be nominated.”
“This film has served as a vessel of complex and undeniable beauty, defying existing narratives about Indigenous people,”Tome observed. “It is a reminder that we are alive, in our fullest purpose, breathing life into the ways that we can be viewed as Native peoples of this land. Historically, Indigenous people in film have been at the whim of our oppressors. Our stories have not been written or created by us, demanding conflict and trauma. Throughout my career, I have questioned why there is a need to frame stories about Indigenous people in detrimental ways for them to be worthy. Long Line of Ladies has changed how I see my role as a Diné woman filmmaker and how we can celebrate our way of life from our own perspective, while valuing the lives of communities healing together to create a better future.”
Long line of ladiesDOP Sam Davis shot the documentary on 16mm film. He also edited it. It will premiere on nytimes.com and the New York Times YouTube channel as part of the distinguished Op-Docs series (earlier this year, the New York Times Op-Doc The Queen of BasketballBen Proudfoot directed “The Academy Award for Best Documentary Short”.
Zehtabchi was awarded her Oscar in 2019. Period. End of Sentence.This is a short documentary that was filmed in India and features women who have teamed up to make low-cost but high-quality sanitary pad.
“Where Period. End of Sentence. aimed to shed light on the stigma and shame surrounding menstruation, the concept for this project was to change the conversation by highlighting a community whocelebrates menstruation,”Zehtabchi stated in a statement. “But what began as a short film about periods blossomed into a much greater story of community, family, and tradition.”
The film was produced by Garrett Schiff and Zehtabchi for Junk Drawer, in association with The Pad Project and Pimm Tripp Allen. Davis shot the film and edited it with music by Juan Kleban and Forrest Goodluck.
Op-Docs: Adam Ellick is executive producer; Christine Kecher is senior comming editor; Andrew Blackwell is supervising Editor; Alexandra Garcia, supervising Producer, and Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo, series producer.
Take a look at the teaser trailer Long Line of Lady-Friendly Products here: