THE BURNING OF MOSES SEATTLE + UNRECOGNIZED

Seattle bears the name of a Duwamish leader, but the United States government still refuses to recognize the Duwamish Tribe. Two new documentaries by Seattle filmmakers examine the enduring consequences of dispossession and the unfinished struggle for justice in the city built on Duwamish land.

David Norman Lewis's THE BURNING OF MOSES SEATTLE investigates the mysterious, unsolved murder of Chief Seattle's grandson, uncovering a disturbing chapter of local history where mythology, family memory and historical mystery intersect.

In UNRECOGNIZED: THE DUWAMISH TRIBE, director BJ Bullert examines the tribe's decades-long fight for federal recognition, a battle involving contested historical records, political opposition, and the extraordinary situation of a people forced to prove their continued existence in their own ancestral homeland. Through interviews and archival materials, Bullert reveals how the consequences of Seattle's founding remain very much alive in the present.

“UNRECOGNIZED is a compassionate and unfiltered examination of the impact the Pacific NW's colonial era continues to have on native lives today — especially the people of the Duwamish Tribe, now deemed "extinct" despite their ongoing and visible presence in the Northwest's largest city. The story of the Duwamish and their struggle for recognition is essential history — not just for Seattle, but for the nation and the many indigenous people whose existence we deny to this day.” - BJ Cummings, author, The River that Made Seattle: A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish