“This Land,” a documentary short film directed by Mike Bradley, will have its New York premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The film is included in the Shorts: Common Ground program and will be screened on June 9, 14, and 15. The director is scheduled to attend all three screenings in person.
The film documents the formation of Ganienkeh, a self-governed Mohawk community in upstate New York.
Here’s the doc’s synopsis:
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, with occasional violent clashes with local residents.
In 1977, they negotiated a land swap with the State of New York and agreed to relocate to a permanent settlement near Plattsburgh, where the community remains. Ganienkeh is one of the only known examples of an Indigenous people reclaiming land from the United States, but it may not be the last.
