The Unknown Country

Thanks to our community partner for this film, Indigenous Strategies

An invitation to reunite with her estranged Oglala Lakota family launches a grieving young woman (Lily Gladstone, Certain Women) on an unexpected road trip from the Midwest toward the Texas-Mexico border. In this largely solitary journey with an unknown destination, Tana navigates the complex social climate of the American West, and a natural landscape that is increasingly surreal. Along the way, she accepts the kindness of strangers and the gentle arms of kinfolk close and distant, measuring the miles in hugs, gatherings, family revelations and cigarette butts. At times at ease, at times on edge as a woman traveling alone, Tana’s journey forces her to grapple with the pain of her recent loss as she seeks to understand her place in the world. Director Morrisa Maltz, who previously made documentaries, conjures a touch of hybrid magic as the film blurs fiction and non-fiction elements (including non-professional cast, an actual wedding, and sweet interludes with some of the actual characters Gladstone’s Tana meets on the way), in a loose, sprawling and sometimes anxiously heartfelt excursion that offers a vital glimpse of an overlooked America. (Dir. by Marissa Maltz, 2022, USA, 85 mins., Not Rated)

Other festivals: SXSW, Champs-Élysées FF