John Trudell

John Trudell

Born: February 15, 1946
Died: December 8, 2015
in Omaha - Nebraska - USA
John Trudell was an American Indian author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz. During most of the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

After his pregnant wife, three children and mother-in-law were killed in 1979 in a fire at the home of his parents-in-law on the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Nevada, Trudell turned to writing, music and film as a second career. He acted in three films in the 1990s. The documentary Trudell (2005) was made about him and his life as an activist and artist.

Movies for John Trudell...

Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
Title: Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
Character: Self
Released: September 22, 2017
Type: Movie
Documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history, a little-known story built around the incredible lives and careers of the some of the greatest music legends.
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Taking Alcatraz
Title: Taking Alcatraz
Character: Self (archive footage)
Released: November 1, 2015
Type: Movie
A documentary account by award-winning filmmaker John Ferry of the events that led up to the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island as told by principal organizer, Adam Fortunate Eagle. The story unfolds through Fortunate Eagle's remembrances, archival newsreel footage and photographs.
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Dark Blood
Title: Dark Blood
Character: Indian #2
Released: September 27, 2012
Type: Movie
Filmed in 1993 but never completed due to River Phoenix's death, Dark Blood tells the story of Boy, a young widower living on a nuclear testing site in the desert. Boy is waiting for the end of the world and carves Katchina dolls that supposedly contain magical powers. Boy's solitude is interrupted when a Hollywood jet-set couple who are travelling across the desert become stranded after their car breaks down. The couple are rescued by Boy, who then holds them prisoner because of his desire for the woman and his ambition to create a better world with her.
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Reel Injun
Title: Reel Injun
Character: Self
Released: February 19, 2010
Type: Movie
The history of the evolution of the depiction of the various Native American peoples in cinema, from the silent era to the present day: how their image on the screen has changed the way to understand their history and culture.
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No More Smoke Signals
Title: No More Smoke Signals
Character: self
Released: April 16, 2009
Type: Movie
Kili Radio - "Voice of the Lakota Nation" - is broadcast out of a small wooden house that sits isolated on a hill, lost in the vast countryside of South Dakota. It’s a place that’s long forgotten; lying at the crossroads between combat and hope, between the American dream and daily existence on America’s poorest reservation. Yet we find people like Roxanne Two Bulls, who’s trying to start over again on the land of her ancestors; the young DJ Derrick who’s discovering his gift for music; Bruce, the white lawyer who for thirty years has been trying to free a militant who’s been fighting for American Indian rights; and finally John Trudell, an old AIM activist who’s made a career for himself as a musician in Hollywood. Everything converges at Kili Radio. Instead of sending smoke signals the radio station transmits its own signals across a vast and ... (from the webpage)
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The 11th Hour
Title: The 11th Hour
Character: Himself
Released: August 17, 2007
Type: Movie
A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dialogues of experts from all over the world, including former Soviet Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev, renowned scientist Stephen Hawking, former head of the CIA R. James Woolse
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A Thousand Roads
Title: A Thousand Roads
Character: Narrator
Released: January 23, 2005
Type: Movie
The film threads together four stories, taking us into the life of a stressed-out Mohawk stockbroker in Manhattan; a young Inupiat girl sent to live with her grandmother in Barrow, Alaska; a Navajo gang member who must find his core values in his reservation on the mesas of New Mexico; and a Quechua healer in Peru, attempting to save a sick child. Each story explores what it means to belong to a specific community. A Thousand Roads is a fictional work, produced by National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) to explore the human context of the NMAI’s collections. The film is striking visually, and presents through its beauty and its stories an imaginative entry into knowing about Native people living in the vast indigenous geography that comprises the Americas. Rather than presenting a conventional historical perspective, the film is composed of short contemporary fictions about individuals, grounding them in emotional truths to which an audience can easily relate.
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Trudell
Title: Trudell
Character: Self / Narrator (voice)
Released: January 20, 2005
Type: Movie
A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances and politics.
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Dreamkeeper
Title: Dreamkeeper
Character: Coyote
Released: December 28, 2003
Type: Movie
In South Dakota, in an Indian reservation, an old storyteller Indian asks his grandson Shane, who is in trouble owing money to some bad guys, to take his old pony and him to Albuquerque to the great powwow, an Indian meeting. While traveling, Grandpa tells mysterious Indian tales of love, friendship and magic.
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Making A Noise: A Native American Musical Journey with Robbie Robertson
Title: Making A Noise: A Native American Musical Journey with Robbie Robertson
Character: Self - Santee Sioux
Released: January 1, 1999
Type: Movie
This doc explores "The Band" guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson's Native American background. Half Mohawk on his mother's side, the film follows him back to the Six Nations reservation in Ontario where he spent summers growing up and picked up his first guitar. The resulting album, "Contact From the Underworld of Red Boy", draws on his childhood First Nation influences and includes musical collaborations wth Native artists such as John Trudell, Rita Coolidge and Buffy Ste Marie.
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Smoke Signals
Title: Smoke Signals
Character: Randy Peone
Released: January 16, 1998
Type: Movie
Young Native American man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents died in a fire in 1976, and Thomas was saved by Arnold. Arnold soon left his family, and Victor hasn't seen his father for 10 years. When Victor hears Arnold has died, Thomas offers him funding for the trip to get Arnold's remains.
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Extreme Measures
Title: Extreme Measures
Character: Tony
Released: September 27, 1996
Type: Movie
Guy Luthan, a British doctor working at a hospital in New York, starts making unwelcome enquiries when the body of a man who died in his emergency room disappears. After the trail leads Luthan to the door of an eminent surgeon at the hospital, Luthan soon finds himself in extreme danger people who want the hospital's secret to remain undiscovered.
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Title: The West
Character: Self
Released: September 15, 1996
Type: TV
The West, sometimes marketed as Ken Burns Presents: The West, is a documentary film about the American Old West. It was directed by Stephen Ives and the executive producer was Ken Burns. The film originally aired on PBS in September 1996.
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On Deadly Ground
Title: On Deadly Ground
Character: Johnny Redfeather
Released: February 18, 1994
Type: Movie
Forrest Taft is an environmental agent who works for the Aegis Oil Company in Alaska. Aegis Oil's corrupt CEO is the kind of person who doesn't care whether or not oil spills into the ocean or onto the land—just as long as it's making money for him.
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Incident at Oglala
Title: Incident at Oglala
Character: Himself - National Spokesperson, American Indian Movement
Released: May 8, 1992
Type: Movie
On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a group of Indians. Although several men were charged with killing the agents, only one, Leonard Peltier, was found guilty. This film describes the events surrounding the shootout and suggests that Peltier was unjustly convicted.
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Thunderheart
Title: Thunderheart
Character: Jimmy Looks Twice
Released: April 3, 1992
Type: Movie
An FBI man with Sioux background is sent to a reservation to help with a murder investigation, where he has to come to terms with his heritage.
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Powwow Highway
Title: Powwow Highway
Character: Louie Short Hair
Released: February 24, 1989
Type: Movie
Two Northern Cheyenne men take a road trip from Montana to New Mexico to bail out the sister of one of them who has been framed and arrested in Santa Fe. On the way, they begin to reconnect to their spiritual heritage.