Directed by Neil Diamond and Catherine Bainbridge, Red Fever is a stunning look at the world’s historical fascination with Indigenous Peoples. Traveling across the Atlantic, Diamond follows the lines between modern day fashion, sports, agricultural practices and democracy and the unrecognized influences of Indigenous ways of thinking that helped create them. In doing so, Red Fever hopes to chart a new path for the future by giving credit where it needs to be given.
The true heat of this Fever is the way that it reclaims their story. With each category, Diamond and Bainbridge systematically point out the ways that the impact of the Indigenous people has been stolen from the history books. As the camera follows Diamond around the world, one cannot help but be in awe over the impact of a culture that has yet to be acknowledged properly. From the ways that Jim Thorpe and his team reshaped the way we understand football to the birth of democracy, Red Fever highlights the incredible ways that Indigenous people changed our modern world, yet remain relegated to images of parody (or worse).
Conversations surrounding headdresses worn at Chiefs games or patterns in the fashion industry spiral into in-depth explorations of the symbolic meaning behind the images. Inquiries into the nature of gender equity today are fueled by the spirituality of the Haudenosaunee and the ways women provide the foundation for their leadership. At every turn, Diamond and Bainbridge prove the innumerable ways that culture has stolen from Indigenous culture, yet never acknowledged it along the way.
In this way, Red Fever carries with it a sense of tragedy as it also points out how many people choose to continue to live in ignorance. (An image of Diamond standing in a bar while countless sports fans elicit the ‘tomahawk chop’ is particularly poignant.) Even so, Red Fever hopes that, by regaining control of the narrative, maybe others will begin to step into history with a greater sense of humility and see the stories that they’ve been missing.
Red Fever is playing at HotDocs ’24. For more information, click here.
