Vision Maker Film Festival Presents “Everything is Connected”

Published on January 31, 2026

These videos are available to view the entire month of February. Please check back each month as new titles will be available to stream.

Each month brings a new selection of powerful American Indian and Alaska Native films, available through in-person screenings at The Ross Theater in Lincoln, NE, and streaming free online worldwide. Join us and discover Indigenous stories, cultures, and perspectives that connect us all.

Streaming this Month:

The Electric Indian: A documentary from filmmaker Leya Hale, The Electric Indian follows Ojibwe hockey legend, Henry Boucha. A stand-out hockey star from Warroad, Minnesota, Boucha impressed on the ice from the 1969 Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament to the 1972 Olympics to the NHL, but an on-ice assault and injury ended his athletic career that unexpectedly led to a journey of healing and cultural reclamation.
(Theme: Connected by Resilience)
The Love for the Game: Isaac, a former basketball player, watches old highlights from his games, he is visited by a Basketball Angel, who is trying to help Isaac get his enthusiasm back for basketball again. After Stella, Isaac’s little sister, persuades her brother to take her to the local basketball court, Isaac is confronted with Basketball Angel as he expresses why he is done with the game he once loved. As Isaac expresses his emotions, Basketball Angel helps Isaac remember why he fell in love with the game in the first place.
(Themes: Connected by Community, Connected by Generations)

January’s Ross Film Screening and Panel

Firelighters: Fire is Medicine: Our relationship with fire is out of balance, leading to catastrophic wildfires. Firelighters follows Yurok and Karuk burning rights activists as they share their knowledge and provide solutions to this global problem.

Between lightning strikes and Indigenous burns, most landscapes in North America were shaped by fire for centuries. Indigenous people had, and still have, deep knowledge of the art of using fire. For most of the 20th century, U.S. federal fire policy was guided by a strategy of fire suppression, which has been one of the main causes of current catastrophic fires. Native Americans face persecution and penalty when they try to use fire in line with their traditions — even on public lands where they often hold treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather.

A follow-up to the successful film Apache 8, produced in 2011, Firelighters follows the transformative work of women leaders from the Yurok and Karuk Tribes who are building educational resources to share indigenous practices and create policies to take back indigenous burning rights.
In this panel discussion, Laurie Richards, the Program Manager for The Ross Theater, interviews Elizabeth Azzuz, a founding member of the Cultural Fire Management Council and Director of Traditional Fire on the Yurok Reservation and Ancestral Lands. Azzuz is featured prominently in the film, Firelighters: Fire Is Medicine, and shares insights into the vital work of restoring traditional ecological practices worldwide.

(Theme: Connected by Relationships to Land & Place)

This programming was made possible by the generosity of these sponsors:

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