Remaining Native

In this SXSW Special Jury Award–winning documentary, a Native American teen’s desire to run embodies both career aspiration and ancestral connection.

Seventeen-year-old Kutoven “Ku” Stevens, of the Yerington Paiute Tribe, was born to run. But his passion and strides carry the weight of inherited trauma: his great-grandfather Frank “Togo’o” Quinn, then just eight years old, escaped his oppressive boarding school by running more than 80 kilometres across the Nevada desert. These federal and church-run institutions, founded across the US and Canada, were built to ‘assimilate’ Indigenous children by stripping away language, culture and identity – often under harrowing conditions. For Ku, therefore, his pursuit of a university track scholarship coincides with a more personal mission: retracing Quinn’s route as a profound act of reclamation.

Making her feature directorial debut, Haudenosaunee (Mohawk/Oneida) filmmaker Paige Bethmann heeded the pull she felt towards Ku; her own great-grandmother survived abuse at a Catholic boarding school after being removed from her reservation. She presents Ku’s story alongside archival images of boarding schools and interviews with survivors and their families, culminating in the two-day Remembrance Run event organised by the teenager. Winning a Special Jury Award and Audience Award at SXSW, Remaining Native is a candid, inspirational account of how one young person’s modern-day ambitions can offer a path towards healing historical wounds.

“An inspiring coming-of-age story and impactful history lesson … Bethmann’s technically polished and utterly absorbing film skillfully forges a link between past and present.” – Variety