Followed by a conversation with filmmaker Adam Khalil, producer Jacque Clark, and historian and NAGPRA officer Veronica Pasfield, moderated by Debra Yepa-Pappan, Co-Founding Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the Center for Native Futures, and audience Q&A.

“Asks hard questions about the documentary form itself, and about the institutions that claim to preserve history while continuing to cause harm.”—Elissa Suh, Filmmaker Magazine

Thursday, October 8, 6:00 p.m. | A formally audacious act of reclamation, Aanikoobijigan, by acclaimed Ojibwe artist-filmmakers Adam and Zack Khalil—directors of the landmark INAATE/SE (2016) and core contributors to the public-secret society New Red Order—is both a searing indictment of institutions holding Indigenous Ancestors and a stirring testament to those working to bring them home. Winner of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT Audience Award, the film follows the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance, a coalition of specialists from tribes across Michigan, in its decades-long effort to press museums, universities, and archives to return human remains stolen from Indigenous communities. The film moves through vérité observation, essay, and kaleidoscopic animation to expose the racialized science that sustains these collections—and to bend time and space toward an Anishinaabe understanding of relation. Past, present, and future fold into one another, the Earth emerges as a living presence rather than inert ground, and Ancestors are active participants in the work of return.

Presented in partnership with the Center for Native Futures. 

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Adam Khalil, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is an artist whose practice attempts to subvert traditional forms of image-making through humor, relation, and transgression. Khalil is the co-director and co-editor of the feature documentary INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place./ it flies. falls./] (2016), which premiered as the closing-night film of the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight Film Festival, and the experimental documentary short The Violence of a Civilization Without Secrets (2017), which premiered at Sundance. Khalil is a core contributor to New Red Order and a co-founder of COUSIN Collective. Khalil’s work has been exhibited and screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Tate Modern, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Walker Art Center, Lincoln Center, Palais de Tokyo, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Creative Time, the 2019 Toronto Biennial, the 2019 Whitney Biennial, Sharjah Biennial 15, and Counterpublic Triennial 2023, among other institutions. Khalil is the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including a 2021 Creative Capital Award, 2020 Herb Alpert Award, Sundance Art of Nonfiction, Jerome Artist Fellowship, Cinereach, and the Gates Millennium Scholarship.

Jacque Clark, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a creative producer working in film and music. With a background in mortuary science, Clark brings a distinctive perspective to the creative process, exploring its poetic, scientific, relational, and existential dimensions. Clark is based in Minneapolis and part-time in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

Veronica Pasfield is a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. An oral historian, tribal consultant, curator, repatriation officer, and museum decolonizer, she serves as a NAGPRA Officer for the Bay Mills Indian Community. Her research and advocacy center Tribal sovereignty, repatriation, and the histories and legacies of federal Indian boarding schools. She holds a PhD and MFA from the University of Michigan and is a graduate of the Anishinaabemowin Language Instructor’s Institute at Bay Mills Community College.

Debra Yepa-Pappan (Jemez Pueblo/Korean) is a visual artist and Co-Founding Director of Exhibitions and Programs at the Center for Native Futures. Her practice is dedicated to changing inaccurate representations of Native people, advocating for the inclusion of Native voices and perspectives, and supporting other Native artists. Her multimedia work combines digital collage and photography to explore mixed-race identity, cultural pride, and a sense of home, and is held in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, the Schingoethe Center at Aurora University, and the British Library in London, among others.

ACCESSIBILITY

All CATE events include real-time captioning (CART) for introductions and post-screening discussions. This film will be presented with closed captions. Closed-captioning receivers are available from the box office. The theater is also equipped with hearing loops. For more accessibility information or to request additional accommodations, visit saic.edu/access or email cate@saic.edu.

TICKETS

$14 General public
$9 Students & seniors
$8 Film Center members
$8 SAIC staff & faculty & AIC staff
FREE for SAIC students with a valid ID

All CATE programs are free for SAIC students. Unless otherwise noted, SAIC student tickets are released five days prior to showtime. Tickets must be picked up in person from the Gene Siskel Film Center box office. A student ID is required.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE EDGE

For 25 years, the Siskel Film Center’s award-winning Conversations at the Edge series has welcomed landmark and emerging artists to Chicago for adventurous screenings, performances, and conversation. Bringing together an extraordinary breadth of forms, traditions, and histories, CATE explores—and expands—our sense of what moving images can do. CATE is made possible through the Siskel Film Center’s ongoing collaboration with SAIC’s Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation. The series is organized by Amy Beste, director of public programs at SAIC.