Katahdin Foundation

Main Sections of this Site

Homeland Homeland
ON DVD: Nearly all Indian lands in the U.S. face grave environmental threats – toxic waste, strip mining, oil drilling and nuclear contamination. But a handful of activists are fighting back. Filmed against some of America’s most spectacular backdrops, from Alaska to Maine and Montana to New Mexico, Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action profiles the against-all-odds struggles of Native American leaders who are taking on powerful energy companies and government agencies to protect the environment for all Americans. A moving tribute to the power of grassroots organizing, Homeland is also a call-to-action against the current dismantling of thirty years of environmental laws. more >>
Blessed is the Match Blessed Is the Match
ON DVD: Narrated by Academy Award nominee Joan Allen, Blessed Is the Match is the first documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, the World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter and modern-day Joan of Arc. Safe in Palestine in 1944, Hannah joined a mission to rescue Hungary’s Jews. Shockingly, it was the only outside rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust. Hannah parachuted behind enemy lines, was captured, tortured and ultimately executed by the Nazis. Incredibly, her mother Catherine witnessed the entire ordeal – first as a prisoner with Hannah and later as her advocate, braving the bombed-out streets of Budapest in a desperate attempt to save her daughter. more >>
Hava Nagila, What Is It? Hava Nagila, What Is It?
IN POST-PRODUCTION: It’s to music what the bagel is to food – a Jewish staple that has transcended its origins and become a worldwide hit. But Hava Nagila…what is it? This feature documentary answers that question, following the song’s surprising journey from Ukraine to YouTube. Scholars excavate the song’s layers. Singers and comedians provide their own renditions. Jews and non-Jews alike remember Hava happenings in their past. And ultimately, viewers gain a deeper understanding of Jewish history and culture, and of the ability of one song to express and sustain identity and to connect us across cultures and continents. more >>
Dorothea Lange photograph of woman Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning
IN PRODUCTION: Grab a Hunk of Lightning is a 90-minute film, on the photographer, Dorothea Lange. It's also an exploration of the creative process, and the cost of a creative life. Dorothea Lange was a photographer whose work during the Great Depression resonates more than ever today. She photographed the disenfranchised - the migration to the West during the Dustbowl, extreme poverty in the streets of San Francisco and throughout the United States, the Japanese Internment, and the urbanization of her adopted state, California.more >>
no image Indians: An Unexpected Story
IN DEVELOPMENT: Most popular histories of American Indians end in 1890 with the massacre at Wounded Knee. But the stories of more than 500 Native American nations didn’t stop 115 years ago at a bloody creek in South Dakota. Far from it. From the birth of the reservations to the birth of Foxwoods, the original Americans have survived and even thrived over the last century.more >>