Underneath the Michigan State University stadium are miniatures depicting early life in the settler state most call the United States. These objects aren’t the only ones stuck in that limbo – this place is also where the university stores Indigenous remains. Settlers treat Indigenous people with disrespect when they’re alive and even when they’re dead. This is something that MACRA, an advocacy group, would like to reverse. They want to reverse westerners’ archeological hoarding and bury the remains of their ancestors for the last time. Attempting to do so requires a lot of paperwork and push back from western institutions.

I’m of the belief that certain political solutions are simple, especially in the case of where Indigenous remains actually belong. Sure, the only complexity here is that Michigan State University and other institutions don’t know which remains belong to whom. Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/grandchild] frames these conflicts with similar simplicity – that all thee delays are mere push backs against ‘political natives’. And sure, this film feels like it’s preaching to a choir but it helps that I am on their side. It helps that their approach to the subject feels close, their camera treating anything in front of the camera respectfully.

Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/grandchild] mixes that close, impressionistic aesthetic approach with the usual elements that one sees in documentary films about history. It shows archive footage of fictional and real archaeologists with Indigenous activists questioning how that profession frames its academic benevolence. Aesthetically, this is probably the tamest and most conventional film coming from brothers / experimental filmmakers Adam and Zach Khalil. But some of their early stylistic adventures seep out here even in a topic that demands a filmmaker being respectful. For the most part, this documentary finds the right balance of confronting some potential settler viewers while properly educating them.