The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
For our opening night, we are pleased to present Billy Luther’s first narrative feature, “Frybread Face and Me,” followed by a Q&A with one of the film’s protagonists, Charley Hogan (Navajo).
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“Frybread Face and Me” (dir. Billy Luther, 2023)
Two adolescent Navajo cousins from different worlds bond during a summer herding sheep on their grandmother’s ranch in Arizona, learning more about their family’s past and themselves.
Content warning: For mature audiences. Contains coarse language.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian - Rasmuson Auditorium
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
Stories of loss, revelation, and recovery can lead us on the path to restoring a sense of wholeness. In this program, youth confront generational trauma and seek to break through for a brighter future. Following the screening, stay for a Q&A with director Xun Sero.
Registration at the link below is encouraged.
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“Mother’s Tongue” (dir. D. Wilmos Paul, 2022)
Junior, an African teenager ashamed of his accent, enrolls in a creative writing club hoping he can make it through the semester without speaking… until he’s faced with his worst fear.
“Mamá / Mom” (dir. Xun Sero, 2022)
In this deeply moving dialogue between a mother and son, Tzotzil director Xun Sero confronts his past with honesty, understanding, and forgiveness. Content warning: For mature audiences.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden - Ring Auditorium
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
As a result of colonization, much Indigenous knowledge was destroyed or extracted, with many sacred objects finding their way to museums overseas. How can Indigenous scholars and communities reclaim their patrimony and reconnect with the knowledges embedded in their objects? We’ll explore questions of return and reclamation in this film and the Q&A that follows with the director and Ñuu Savi cultural experts.
Registration at the link below is encouraged.
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“Ñii Ñu’u” (dir. Omar Aguilar Sánchez, 2022)
The Ñii Ñu’u, or sacred books, are codices that contain the history and worldview of the Ñuu Savi people (People of the Rain, or Mixtec people). Today, none of the surviving Mixtec codices are in the hands of the community. After 500 years, director and scholar Omar Aguilar Sánchez has interpreted the codices based on the knowledge of his own language and culture, teaching communities how to read the codices, offering workshops, and recreating the pictorial writing to support their identity, with practical implications for the community in the creation of an official logo.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - Q?rius
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
How can we find balance when on opposing sides? Can we build spaces for listening and leveling the playing field? A discussion with director Francisco Huichaqueo will follow the screening.
Registration at the link below is encouraged.
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"I Am Home" (dir. Kymon Greyhorse, 2022)
This poetic memoir is a love letter that speaks of introspection and what it means to rediscover who you are and cherish where you come from.
"Künü" (dir. Francisco Huichaqueo, 2022)
Mapuche and Chileans have always been in conflict. So how will they live together? First, by getting to know each other. Once the field is leveled, a conversation can begin. This film presents a crisp portrait of the process behind an architectural structure that aims to start a conversation.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
Smithsonian Natural Museum of Natural History - Q?rius
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
We invite you on a poignant journey through identity and cultural revival. These films paint a vivid portrait of the struggles and triumphs in reclaiming Indigenous languages. "Grape Soda in the Parking Lot" and "ᏓᏗᏬᏂᏏ (We Will Speak)" each uniquely testify to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of erasure, highlighting the vital role language plays in connecting us to our past, present, and future. Join us for an evening screening that reflects on and celebrates the power of memory and words to create change.
Registration at the link below is required.
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Grape Soda in the Parking Lot (dirs. Megan Kyak-Monteith, Taqralik Partridge, 2023)
What if every language that had been lost to English—every word, every syllable—grew up out of the ground in flowers? The Scottish Gaelic of Taqralik Partridge’s grandmother and the Inuktitut of her father unfold in memories of her family, of pain, and of love.
"ᏓᏗᏬᏂᏏ (We Will Speak)" (dirs. ᎤᎶᎩᎳ/Schon Duncan, Michael McDermit, 2023)
The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity, yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a state of emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 1,500 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The COVID pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and youth now lead efforts to use and hear Cherokee again in daily life.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
In this program, two films intersect at the crossroads of love and resistance. "Aikāne" and "Y SŴN" illustrate the spiritual connections that can be formed and the cultural ties that can be broken in the fight against political repression. Though artistically varied, both display the transformative power of commitment, be it to a person or a cause, iterating the fight for identity as a universal narrative. Join this evening screening, followed by a Q&A, and celebrate the indomitable spirit of humanity in its many facets.
Registration at the link below is required.
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"Aikāne" (dirs. Daniel Sousa, Dean Hamer, Joe Wilson, 2023)
A valiant island warrior, wounded in battle against foreign invaders, falls into a mysterious underwater world. Everything changes when the octopus who rescues him transforms into a handsome young man.
"Y SŴN" (dir. Lee Haven Jones, 2023)
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher swept to power in 1979 with a manifesto that promised to establish a Welsh-language television channel. Months into her premiership, she reneged on her promise and sparked protests in Wales. Against a backdrop of civil disobedience, the iconic politician Gwynfor Evans vows to starve to death unless the government changes course. In "Y SŴN," one of the most colorful chapters of modern Welsh history is told in an imaginative and unique style.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
These collected shorts from around the world explore different dimensions of finding sustenance—whether through connecting to place and kin, cooking and eating food, or different forms of artistic expression. Evoking the many dimensions and transformations in these ongoing practices, these films reveal the various ways humans connect to their world. Stay after the films for a Q&A with attending directors.
Registration at the link below is encouraged.
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"Imalirijit" (dirs. Vincent L’Herault, Time Anaviapik Soucie, 2021)
Tim is a young father living in Pond Inlet, Nunavut. As his grandfather did before, he wants to start his own study of water quality to benefit his community. Tim embarks on an inspiring research journey that will lead to empowerment and cultural revitalization. The experience becomes an awakening for Tim and his team, harboring a wind of change and adaptation for this community of the Canadian Arctic.
"Bhaskar Chitrakar: Painting Kalighat Moderns" (dirs. Matthew Raj Webb, Ihaab Syed, Rohan Sengupta, 2024)
This audiovisual portrait of hereditary artist and man of leisure Bhaskar Chitrakar explores his painting style that reimagines a centuries-old, mixed-media tradition of religious idol representation at Kolkata’s Kalighat temple.
"Wa’yûna" (dir. Serena Mosquito, 2023)
Bring your appetite for learning and get ready to blend up some fun! Serena Mosquito whips up a smoothie while speaking in Euchee, a linguistically distinct language spoken in Oklahoma. Equal parts humor and culinary delight, this student film is as charming as it is educational, yielding a heartwarming cultural tribute.
"Ekbeh" (dir. Mariah Hernandez-Fitch, 2023)
While learning to make gumbo from her grandparents, Mariah Fernandez-Fitch draws out their personal stories as a way to honor and preserve their Indigenous history and life.
"Mutsoóngo Malaávu" (dir. Rosa Vieira, 2023)
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, palm wine tapsters play a key role in Yoómbe village life. Palm wine is an alcoholic beverage, drawn from the top of the oil palm, associated with the ancestors. Limber climbers extract this ancient drink to share among family, friends, and guests.
"Burros" (dir. Jefferson Stein, 2021)
Set in southern Arizona, twenty miles from the Mexico border in the Tohono O’odham Nation, a six-year-old Indigenous girl (Amaya Juan) discovers a Hispanic migrant her age who has lost her father while traveling through the tribal lands into the United States.
"Silt" (dir. Emilie Upczak, 2022)
A botanist grieving the death of a beloved aunt travels alone to northern Mexico, where she is nourished by images of the last trip they took together, traversing the Colorado River.
"A Bata do Milho / Corn Beat" (dirs. Eduardo Liron, Renata Mattar, 2023)
In Serra Preta of Bahia, a region of northeast Brazil with a distinctive dialect, the families of rural workers keep the tradition of work songs alive. They cultivate corn in traditional ways and come together in a joint effort throughout all stages of cultivation, including pounding the corn. Each step in the process has songs, rhythms, and festivities that emerge to manage and brighten the work process.
"Nhakpoti / Star Girl" (dirs. Pat-i Kayapó, Paul Chilsen, 2023)
Mêbêngôkre-Kayapó youth and elders reenact the story of how agriculture was brought from the heavens to their community. The Mêbêngôkre-Kayapó people live along the Xingu River in northwest Brazil, amid more than 27 million acres of rainforest. The film is the first narrative video project by the community of A’Ukre, created in collaboration with elders and the Mêbêngôkre filmmaking collective.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - Baird Auditorium
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
Nüshu, a clandestine language created and used solely by Yao women in Hunan Province, offers a unique legacy that unites its practitioners. Delving into the lives of women in modern China bound by the once-secret script, "Hidden Letters" is a poignant exploration of female bonds and the generational echoes of gendered oppression in China. The documentary artfully portrays two women’s journeys as they grapple with the complexities of independence and traditional expectations that both define and confine them. Join us for this inspiring screening followed by a Q&A with director Violet Du Feng, diving deeper into Nüshu’s enduring legacy.
Registration at the link below is encouraged.
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"Hidden Letters" (dirs. Violet Du Feng, Qing Zhao, 2022)
Watch the bonds of sisterhood—and the parallel struggles among generations of women in China—that are drawn together by the once-secret written language of Nüshu, the only script designed and used exclusively by women. Two millennials try to balance their lives as independent women in modern China while confronting the traditional identity that defines but also oppresses them.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art - Meyer Auditorium
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
What lengths would you go to keep your family together? Inspired by real-life events, "The Wind & the Reckoning" explores Native Hawaiians’ stand against government-mandated exile due to leprosy. This film is a powerful statement about the dynamics of resistance and is a point of reflection on the dislocation caused by disease and settler-colonialism in Hawai‘i. Stay after the film for a discussion with Smithsonian curator Halena Kapuni-Reynolds.
Registration at the link below is encouraged.
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"The Wind & the Reckoning" (dir. David L. Cunningham, 2022)
As an outbreak of leprosy engulfs nineteenth-century colonial Hawai‘i, a small group of infected Native Hawaiians resist government-mandated exile, taking a courageous stand against the provisional government.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History - Baird Auditorium
The Smithsonian’s Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role languages play in our daily lives.
Join us for a ceremonial drum blessing closing out our festival, leading into our final film screenings. How does one find balance in the wake of disruptive events? We explore this process through two films that use humor and empathy to make sense of the experience of colonialism and survivance. Each film is a multilayered exploration of the power of telling and retelling stories as a way of finding balance.
Registration at the link below is encouraged.
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"A Bear Named Jesus" (dir. Terril Calder, 2023)
At Aunty Gladys’s funeral, Archer Pechawis heard a tap on the window. It was a bear named Jesus, and Jesus had come for Archer’s mom. Now she’s no longer recognizable—while Jesus hangs out in the shed.
"We Are Still Here" (dirs. Beck Cole, Dena Curtis, Tracey Rigney, Danielle MacLean, Tim Worrall, Renae Maihi, Miki Magasiva, Mario Gaoa, Richard Curtis, Chantelle Burgoyne, 2022)
Ten leading Indigenous filmmakers from Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and the South Pacific craft a compellingly original and insightful anthology film in response to the 250th anniversary of a historically celebrated colonizer’s invasion of their lands.
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Accessibility at the Mother Tongue Film Festival:
All films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for Q&As and discussions. All venues are wheelchair accessible.
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden - Ring Auditorium
Curious about American art? Join us for a 30-minute in-person conversation about selected works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection. This program is presented in American Sign Language (ASL) with voice interpretation for hearing participants.
Winner of five Tony® Awards including Best Revival of a Musical, COMPANY “strikes like a lightning bolt. It’s brilliantly conceived and funny as hell” (Variety). Helmed by three-time Tony®-winning director Marianne Elliott (War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Angels in America), this revelatory new production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s groundbreaking musical comedy, at once boldly sophisticated, deeply insightful, and downright hilarious.
It’s Bobbie’s 35th birthday party, and all her friends keep asking, why isn’t she married? Why can’t she find the right man, and isn’t it time to settle down and start a family? As Bobbie searches for answers, she discovers why being single, being married, and being alive in the 21st century could drive a person crazy.
COMPANY features Sondheim’s award-winning songs “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” “Side by Side by Side,” and the iconic “Being Alive.” Let’s all drink to that!
Winner of five Tony® Awards including Best Revival of a Musical, COMPANY “strikes like a lightning bolt. It’s brilliantly conceived and funny as hell” (Variety). Helmed by three-time Tony®-winning director Marianne Elliott (War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Angels in America), this revelatory new production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s groundbreaking musical comedy, at once boldly sophisticated, deeply insightful, and downright hilarious.
It’s Bobbie’s 35th birthday party, and all her friends keep asking, why isn’t she married? Why can’t she find the right man, and isn’t it time to settle down and start a family? As Bobbie searches for answers, she discovers why being single, being married, and being alive in the 21st century could drive a person crazy.
COMPANY features Sondheim’s award-winning songs “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” “Side by Side by Side,” and the iconic “Being Alive.” Let’s all drink to that!
Our ASL-Interpreted Performance of Little Shop of Horrors is scheduled for April 11, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. We offer scheduled sign-interpreted performances for all of our mainstage productions. Sign-Interpreted services are not available by request. With the GalaPro Free Closed Captioning Mobile App, real-time closed captions are available for mainstage performances.
Little Shop of Horrors is a nonstop blast, sci-fi horror comedy, love story and rock musical that has become one of the most treasured pieces of American musical theatre. Little Shop pays homage to doo-wop and Motown recordings. The story follows a luckless florist shop worker, Seymour, who raises a wisecracking carnivorous plant – Audrey II – that develops a craving for human blood. He delights in the fame and fortune that his leafy, ever-growing friend attracts, while trying to show his co-worker Audrey that she is the girl of his dreams. As Seymour discovers Audrey II’s out-of-this-world origins and intent toward world domination, he learns the lesson: “Don’t feed the plants!” Join us for the return of Little Shop to our historic theatre, directed by Kevin S. McAllister (The Wiz, Ragtime).
Music! Food! Fun! Join us for another Kennedy Center Block Party hosted by Education Artist-in-Residence and award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson! Free performances, fun-filled games, and various activities will be programmed on the REACH grounds all afternoon, featuring artists with roots in the Washington, D.C. area.
Reservations encouraged, but not required. Pre-registrants will be entered into a lottery to receive a discounted parking voucher for the Kennedy Center parking garage (details below).
FREE! Celebrate the esteemed recipients of the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship: virtuoso vocalist/pianist Amina Claudine Myers, prolific saxophonist Gary Bartz, Grammy-winning trumpet player Terence Blanchard, and Artistic Director of the DC Jazz Festival Willard Jenkins. This concert event features performances by 2024 recipients, powerful tributes, special guest artists, and more.
All tickets for this event have been claimed. Please check back for additional availability. Standby tickets may be available day-of at the Satellite Box Office at Millenium Stage North on a first-come first-served basis starting at 7:15 p.m., with a standby line forming at 5:30 p.m.
Join the Leadership Alliance for a conversation with Civil Rights leader Dr. Clarence B. Jones, and president Christina H. Paxson of Brown University moderated by Dr. Taiese Bingham-Hickman, Executive Director of The Leadership Alliance, as they explore the ways in which scholarship can provoke discussion, awareness, and action on racial justice and social equity in higher education. The program will feature performances by Dillard University Ladies Ensemble and the Gallaudet University Dance Group.
Online advance reservations for a given performance date will open on a rolling basis, opening every Wednesday two weeks out from the date.
A never-before-seen concert experience! Killer Mike is more than just a rapper—he’s a cultural icon. From his groundbreaking collaborations with Run the Jewels to his solo endeavors, Killer Mike’s music resonates with authenticity, raw energy, and a fearless commitment to speaking truth to power. Hear tracks from his newest, three-time Grammy-winning album Michael, and more, accompanied by the epic sounds of the Mighty Midnight Revival and the National Symphony Orchestra live.
A never-before-seen concert experience! Killer Mike is more than just a rapper—he’s a cultural icon. From his groundbreaking collaborations with Run the Jewels to his solo endeavors, Killer Mike’s music resonates with authenticity, raw energy, and a fearless commitment to speaking truth to power. Hear tracks from his newest, three-time Grammy-winning album Michael, and more, accompanied by the epic sounds of the Mighty Midnight Revival and the National Symphony Orchestra live.
A never-before-seen concert experience! Killer Mike is more than just a rapper—he’s a cultural icon. From his groundbreaking collaborations with Run the Jewels to his solo endeavors, Killer Mike’s music resonates with authenticity, raw energy, and a fearless commitment to speaking truth to power. Hear tracks from his newest, three-time Grammy-winning album Michael, and more, accompanied by the epic sounds of the Mighty Midnight Revival and the National Symphony Orchestra live.
Curious about American art? Join us for a 30-minute virtual conversation about selected works from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s collection. This program is presented in American Sign Language (ASL) with voice interpretation for hearing participants.
Dixie Longate is the fast-talking, gum-chewing, ginger-haired Alabama gal who is bringing your grandma’s Tupperware party into the 21st century. Audiences howl with laughter as Dixie demonstrates the many alternative uses for the iconic plastic kitchen staple. Filled with outrageously funny tales, heartfelt accounts, audience participation, and a little bit of empowerment and homespun wisdom, Dixie’s Tupperware Party leaves your heart a little bigger and your food a little fresher.
Recommended for age 16 and up. This production contains adult content.
Dixie Longate is the fast-talking, gum-chewing, ginger-haired Alabama gal who is bringing your grandma’s Tupperware party into the 21st century. Audiences howl with laughter as Dixie demonstrates the many alternative uses for the iconic plastic kitchen staple. Filled with outrageously funny tales, heartfelt accounts, audience participation, and a little bit of empowerment and homespun wisdom, Dixie’s Tupperware Party leaves your heart a little bigger and your food a little fresher.
Recommended for age 16 and up. This production contains adult content.
The New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, which was co-created in 2003 by comedians Maysoon Zayid and Dean Obeidallah—is celebrating its 20th anniversary by taking the show on the road! The Festival was created to both dispel negative stereotypes about Arab-Americans as well as create a platform for our community to tell our story through comedy. The Washington D.C. show will wrap up our tour with six headliners who have performed in our past festivals. For more information please visit our website ArabComedy.com Funding for New York Arab-American Comedy Festival’s Anniversary Tour is provided by the Doris Duke Foundation.
"The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC presents the world premiere of PORTRAITS, a nine-movement commission that represents the vibrant spectrum of sexual, gender, racial, ethnic, and cultural identities through visual art, music, and dance. Each movement will feature one of nine artworks and come to life through music and motion. Each piece will highlight an aspect of the human experience, with lyrics and dance supporting the artist's original intent. Nine artists. Nine composers. Nine choreographers. One GMCW."