CURRENTLY IN PRODUCTION (2027 ANTICIPATED RELEASE)

SYNOPSIS.

STUDY AND STRUGGLE is an essay-style documentary that traces the entangled histories of land, learning, and resistance in U.S. higher education. Centered on four land-grant universities, the film explores how institutions were built on stolen land—and how they might be transformed through accountability, rematriation, and repair. Grounded in interviews with leading BIPOC scholars, poetic visuals, and layered sound, the film moves cyclically rather than linearly, linking land-based rhythms with protest, pedagogy, and institutional rupture. It invites audiences to reflect on how education is shaped by place—and how it might be reimagined through more grounded, relational forms of knowing.

PROJECT ADVISORS

Megan Red Shirt-Shaw, Director of Native Student Services, University of South Dakota
Robert A. Williams, Jr., Regents Professor, E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law, The University of Arizona Rogers College of Law

PROJECT SUPPORTERS

Chicken and Egg Films — Development Grant 2024