MOVIE

This Land

202520m

Documentary

Your rating

Runtime: 20m
Genre: Documentary
Origin: United States of America

About

The untold story of Ganienkeh, a Mohawk community fighting to regain its traditional culture.

In 1974 a group of Mohawk Indians occupied a defunct girls camp in New York's Adirondack mountains and established a community they called Ganienkeh. Aiming to practice a more traditional lifestyle, and asserting aboriginal title to the land, they stayed for three years, having occasional violent clashes with the local residents. In 1977 they negotiated a (somewhat complicated) land swap with the State, and agreed to move to a permanent home near Plattsburgh, New York, where they remain today. Ganienkeh is one of the only examples of an indigenous people successfully reclaiming land from the United States, but it may not be the last.