Los Angeles PREMIERE
ANOKI - More than a Photo, More than a Pow Wow
Director: Aurélie Debusschère
Anoki, a young man from the Nipmuc Nation, grew up in the world of Pow Wows, singing alongside his brothers. Through this documentary, he shares his deep connection to tradition, family, and music, as well as the immense challenges involved in preserving them.
In a modern world filled with contradictions and often hostile to Indigenous peoples, Anoki seeks to find his place between two worlds. Guided by his father, elders, and the Ohketeau Cultural Center, he embarks on a new path at the heart of his ancestral lands.
He opens his heart like a sacred drum, so that everyone may hear the vibrant and urgent call of a story that must be told, transmitted, and shared — in order to restore justice and foster greater understanding between peoples.
CAST & CREDITS
Director
Aurélie Debusschère
Writer
Larry Spotted Crow Mann, Aurélie Debusschère
Producer
Ohketeau Cultural Center
Key Cast
Anoki Mann, Larry Spotted Crow Mann
DIRECTORS STATEMENT
ANOKI was initiated at the request of Larry Spotted Crow Mann, longtime friend and director of the Ohketeau Cultural Center. The project emerged from a shared concern: to restore narrative integrity around his son Anoki after an emblematic childhood portrait I had created was misappropriated and circulated without consent.
The film became a space to reclaim authorship, voice and lived experience. Structured through narrative chapters inspired by stories written by Larry, ANOKI unfolds through intimate encounters with family and community members, privileging proximity over explanation. Cultural elements are not over-contextualized; meaning emerges through listening, repetition and presence.
As a French filmmaker working in sustained alliance with Indigenous collaborators, I shaped the cinematic structure while remaining accountable to the cultural framework within which the story unfolds. The camera, my Canon 5D Mark IV, operates as a site of trust, grounded in long-term relationship.
Beyond the screen, the film has supported Anoki’s professional transition towards a return to land-based practice and has opened intercultural dialogue with Alpine communities around farming practice and cultural recovery in September 2025.
At its core, ANOKI reflects a commitment to cinema as a space of restoration, transmission and relational responsibility.
ANOKI is an independent production in the final phase of its work-in-progress, with minor technical refinements scheduled for completion by the end of April 2026. It has not been screened with the 2025/2026 major changes in production (length edit, add of new archives, primary color grading work, sound mixing) in the US.
DIRECTORS BIO
Aurélie Debusschère is a French filmmaker, artist and researcher working at the intersection of cinema, cultural transmission and territorial imagination. She is the Founder and President of the REFUGE Institute – Science of the Imaginaries, a nomadic institute based in the French Alps dedicated to fostering collaboration between science, arts and society through cinematic creation.
For nearly two decades, her work has been shaped by long-term relationships with Indigenous communities in North America, exploring questions of cultural continuity, intergenerational dialogue, and relational responsibility.
ANOKI is her first feature documentary.
Showtimes
Tuesday, November 11
Screening: 8:30pm
In Person
Post Screening Guests: Aurelie Debusschere, Larry Spotted Crow Mann, Anoki Mann
Once Purchased
your name will be at ‘Will Call’
AMC The Grove 14
189 The Grove Dr
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Parking
At The Theatre
