Native video = organizing tool

Video Voice for the Voiceless[Mariano Estrada Aguilar] is one of an emerging breed of DIY indigenous filmmakers attempting to galvanize their increasingly fractured societies through digital video. From La Paz, Bolivia to Oaxaca, Mexico to Nunavut on the Canadian Arctic Circle, video is becoming an essential organizing tool.

"We don't think of our videos as entertainment up on the screen," Estrada said during opening remarks at the Native American Film and Video Festival, which took place over the weekend at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, or NMAI, in lower Manhattan. "We hope to inspire reflection and ponder the situations that our communities are up against."