Daughter of a Lost Bird follows Kendra Mylnechuk Potter, a Native woman adopted into a white family, as she reconnects with her Native identity. The film, both instigator and follower, documents Kendra on this odyssey as she finds her birth mother April, also a Native adoptee, and returns to her Native homelands. Relying upon verité scenes as the bulk of the film, the story is intense, emotional and personal. The viewer learns, along with the women, of their inherited cultural trauma as well as some of the beauty of the Lummi ways neither knew while growing up. We watch both women navigate what it means to be Native, and to belong to a tribe from the outside looking in. “The voice of the project is a true collaboration” shares Director Brooke Swaney, “every crew member from subject to our music composer in some way brings their own stories and issues of identity to the project.” Daughter of a Lost Bird explores the gray areas of ethics surrounding transracial adoption, specifically Native American adoption, via a singular story as an entry point into a more complicated national issue.

Live Q&A with filmmaker Brooke Pepion Swaneyand Kendra Mylnechuk Potter on Wednesday, November 10, 7:00 - 7:30 pm.