SUNY Oswego’s Native American studies program will host up-and-coming Seneca filmmaker Caleb Abrams for screenings and a Q&A from 4:30 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, March 27, in the Marano Campus Center auditorium (room 132).
The event is free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served.
“I have used his film ‘Remembering the Removal (Kinzua Dam and Forced Seneca Relocation)’ on a number of occasions in my ANT356: ‘History of the Haudenosaunee’ class,” said Michael Chaness, an assistant professor of anthropology and director of the Native American studies program. “It is terrific!”
The March 27 event also will feature Abrams’ new work “Haudenosaunee: People of the Longhouse,” commissioned by the American Museum of Natural History, and excerpts from his new short film "Burning of my Coldspring Home," which will premiere this May on his home territory of Alleghany.
Raised on the Onöndowa'ga:' territory of Ohi:yo', much of Abrams’ work pushes back against settler-colonial narratives of place and power, while creating space for Indigenous stories of truth, community and connectedness.
In addition to writing, directing and producing his own short films, Abrams has also created work in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History, Vision Maker Media, Toward Castle Films, Skipping Stone Pictures, Buffalo and Toronto Public Media, City Lore, the Aunties Dandelion Collective, Odawi Law PLLC, the Seneca Nation of Indians and the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum.
In 2021, he served as a consultant on the Showtime special event series, “Dexter: New Blood.”
The event receives additional support from the university’s ARTSwego program and Triandiflou Institute for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Transformative Practice.