Synopsis: This intimate documentary explores family history, cultural identity, and the meaning of belonging within the context of Native American history, as Lummi Nation Native Kendra, adopted at birth by a white family, sets out on a journey of discovery. The filmmakers peel off the mystery of Kendra’s adoption layer by layer, as she finds her birth mother, is introduced into the Lummi culture, and meets the ancestors who welcome her with open arms. Kendra must reconcile her newfound Nativeness with the whiteness she has known her entire life - whiteness that has historically been a terrible threat to the Lummi Nation. Throughout the film, Kendra seeks the answer to one burning question: What does it mean to be Native?   A story of intergenerational trauma that documents not only Kendra’s odyssey, but also the pain inflicted on many families by the Indian Child Welfare Act and Indian Adoption Project that lasted from 1958 to 1967.

– Sophia Doctoroff

Director's Bio: Brooke works to tell contemporary Native Stories. Her first feature documentary is DAUGHTER OF A LOST BIRD (Vision Maker Media/CPB). Most recently she is a fellow with Woodstock Film Festival and PBS/Wyncote. She also made the Blacklist’s Inaugural Indigenous List in 2020 with TINDER ON THE REZ along with her cowriter and friend Angela Tucker. When not working in the film industry, Brooke shares her skills with her screenwriting students as a Faculty Mentor at the Institute of American Indian Arts' Low Residency MFA program. Brooke is an enrolled citizen of the Blackfeet Nation and a Bitterroot Salish descendent of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

Film Website: www.daughterofalostbird.com