Logline
A sensory experimental film where Tewa language, image, and memory move together across land and generations, layering archival footage, portraiture, and sound into a meditative experience.
Synopsis
This Land Carries Us is a short experimental doc that centers Tewa presence, voice, and memory across ancestral homelands in northern New Mexico. Guided by the voice of the filmmaker's grandmother, who recites a story written by the filmmaker's late younger brother in the Tewa language, the film unfolds as a sensory meditation on land, family, and intergenerational connection.
Created for the Tewa Nangeh / Tewa Country exhibition at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the film responds directly to the absence of Tewa people in landscapes historically celebrated in Georgia O'Keeffe's work, challenging that erasure. Rooted in the filmmaker's upbringing between San Ildefonso Pueblo and Santa Fe, This Land Carries Us is an offering to family, language, and the land that carries us.
Through archival Hi-8 footage, stop-motion sequences, astro videography, and personal portraits, the film affirms Tewa presence across generations on ancestral lands. The film carries a truth: the relationship between Tewa people and their ancestral lands is not of the past, but ongoing, embodied, and unbroken.
DIRECTOR STATEMENT
I'm from San Ildefonso Pueblo (PoWohGeh Owingeh / Where the Water Cuts Through). The land where I was raised, between San Ildefonso Pueblo and Santa Fe (OgaPogeh Owingeh / White Shell Water Place), carries generations of memory, story, and language. This Land Carries Us is my offering back to our Tewa lands, and more specifically, to our Tewa people who continue to live in relationship with our mother earth.
This short experimental doc centers Tewa presence, voice, and memory across our ancestral homelands.
Though this film is led with a Tewa heart, it is also partially inspired by the landscapes painted by Georgia O’Keeffe and the absences within them. I wanted to reframe that gaze. You cannot speak of Tewa land without also speaking of Tewa people. Before it was called O’Keeffe Country, it was, and will always be, Tewa Country. This film was created as part of the groundbreaking Tewa Nangeh / Tewa Country exhibit at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The story is deeply personal, as I’ve adapted a story written by my late younger brother, Tyler Gonzales, and asked my grandmother, Barbara Gonzales, to translate the story into our Tewa language, and then we recorded her speaking the voice over. In the film, I bring together site-specific footage, family narratives, and the voices of my relatives. The visuals include mixed media such as Hi-8 archival material shot roughly 30 years ago, present-day portraits, stop-motion sequences, astro videography, polaroids, etc.
These portraits of Tewa people in both traditional and modern clothing, standing on our land, are acts of visibility and love. They remind visitors that our connection to this place is not just of the past, but also of the present and future.
I come from six generations of Pueblo pottery artists. When my family works with clay, we think good thoughts so that our pottery reflects that same "goodness". I approach filmmaking the same way. I respect the spirit of the story and create with love for my people. This Land Carries Us is a celebration of being Tewa, and a reminder to visitors that we are still here, living and thriving on the lands that have always carried us.
Charine Pilar Gonzales (Ku’yan Povi)
Tewa Filmmaker | San Ildefonso Pueblo | Povi Studios
TRAILER
This Land Carries Us was created for the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum - Tewa Nangeh / Tewa Country Exhibition (November 7th, 2025 in Santa Fe, New Mexico).
