THIS LAND tells the untold story of Ganienkeh, a Mohawk community struggling to reclaim its traditional culture. The film follows the journey of Ganienkeh villagers as they fight to preserve their cultural identity and ancestral land despite the challenges. THE LAND is part of the Tribeca Fest 2025 “Shorts: Common Ground” program, which includes five other works, and will be screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, which runs from June 4-15, 2025.
Mike Bradley is a Rochester, New York-based director and cinematographer specializing in nonfiction film, including documentary and branded content. He began his career as an independent documentary photographer for clients like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal covering issues including mental health, politics, and the American healthcare system. He is the founder of the production company Big Slide Creative, which was established in 2018. Through its 1% for the Planet membership, Big Slide donates at least one percent of its annual revenue to environmental organizations.
Director Mike Bradley.
What do you want potential audiences to get out of your movie? Every time I screen the film, people approach me and express surprise that they somehow hadn’t heard anything about this story before. I think that most Americans have, at most, a surface-level understanding of native cultures. I certainly do. And so I hope the film encourages viewers to be more curious about indigenous cultures, particularly those in their own area.
Why did you make this movie? That is, is there more to this question that wasn’t in the Director’s Statement. The film began with my personal desire to know more about the story of Ganienkeh. The “occupation” at Moss Lake happened in a popular vacation area that I’ve visited many times, and it was almost disconcerting that such an event could so quickly be forgotten.
How did you go about getting a crew? How and what about approaching the “cast” to talk to you? They really opened up to you, right? The people at Ganienkeh had mostly kept to themselves since the community was established in the 1970s. I initially reached out through an intermediary to explain why I was interested, and he took that to the community. After some internal discussions there, they agreed to speak with me. It took several months for all of that to play out.
– As for a crew, there isn’t much of one: I directed and shot the film myself. I was the only one on-set for the production. In post, I hired a consulting editor, Whitney Skaugue. I was a big fan of their short documentary The Beauty President, which premiered at SXSW a few years ago, and I knew they were interested in consulting on other short docs. Whitney’s help was crucial in shaping the film in part because I was too close to the story.
– I’d done a lot of research and talked to a dozen people who don’t appear in the film, and Whitney provided the perspective of a viewer who doesn’t have all that background knowledge to fill in narrative holes.
Plans for a feature film or series based on the short?I don’t currently have plans to expand the film into a feature or a series, although I think there is plenty more to explore.
Biggest challenges? The people at Ganienkeh were understandably reticent to speak with an outsider, and so the initial effort to connect with them was a challenge. They are really the ones telling the story, so the film couldn’t exist without their participation. Beyond that, I faced a common challenge for indie filmmakers and that is financing. The film was self-financed, and sometimes progress was slow when I had to put it on the back burner to focus on my paying work for brands.
Biggest Surprises? Learning about the intricacies of the land deal that ended the “standoff” in 1977 was fascinating. It allowed both sides to save face: the Mohawks didn’t want to purchase any land because doing so, they believed, would be a tacit admission that the land was fairly owned by the State of New York.
And New York State didn’t want to give land to the Mohawks for fear of setting a precedent that they could be strong-armed by other groups (the legality of giving them land was also fuzzy based on the state constitution). It’s a compromise that created an ongoing incentive for the two parties to stay on good terms, because the trust that owns the land needs to be renewed every few years.
I find it hard to imagine such a compromise being reached if something like this happened today.
What’s Next? I’m hoping to develop another historical documentary about a conflict between an American Indian tribe and the United States, I’m in the very early stages of that. In the meantime I’m also in production on another short documentary in Rochester, where I live, that will be complete later in 2025.
THIS LAND World Premiere Screenings at 2025 Tribeca Festival
Monday, June 9 at 9 PM
Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Press/Industry Screening
Friday, June 13 at 1 PM
AMC 19th St. East 6 (Theater 4)
Saturday, June 14 at 11:15 AM
AMC 19th St. East 6
Sunday, June 15 at 5:30 PM
Shorts Theater at Spring Studios
Director-Producer-Writer-Editor-Cinematographer Mike Bradley in-person for all screenings.
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