Seventeen-year-old Ku Stevens is the only cross-country runner at his high school on the Yerington Paiute reservation. Training without a coach, he dreams of earning a spot at the University of Oregon, but the path ahead is haunted by the past: his great-grandfather, Frank Quinn, escaped an “Indian boarding school” as a child by running 50 miles through the Nevada desert. As Ku prepares for his collegiate competition, he retraces Frank’s escape route in a commemorative race — transforming memory into movement, and survival into strength.
With striking intimacy and restrained power, Remaining Native links personal ambition with collective memory, confronting the enduring legacies of state violence against Indigenous communities. First-time director Paige Bethmann, a Haudenosaunee (Mohawk/Oneida) filmmaker, draws from her own family history to explore what it means to inherit trauma and move through it. Winner of both the Documentary Feature Audience Award and a Special Jury Award at SXSW 2025, this is a vital document of youth-led reclamation and Indigenous resilience.
Special Jury Prize, Audience Award, SXSW 2025
Oct 7: Q&A
Media Partner
Community Partner
Kutoven “Ku” Stevens
USA
2025
English
Residential schools
Open to youth!
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Randy Gebhardt, Christopher Gebhardt, Dawn Bonder, Daniel J. Chalfen, Marci Wiseman, Andrea Meditch, Billy Mills, Tracy Rector, Wendy Ettinger
Producer
Jessica Epstein, Paige Bethmann, Judd Ehrlich
Cinematography
Shai Ben-Dor, Paige Bethmann
Editor
Stephanie Khoury
Original Music
Kino Benally
Paige Bethmann
Paige Bethmann is a Haudenosaunee woman (Mohawk/Oneida) and first-time feature filmmaker based in Reno, Nevada. Over the last 10 years, she has worked in non-fiction television for various digital and broadcast networks such as ESPN, PBS, Vox Media, Youtube Originals, USA, and NBC. She is a graduate of Ithaca College, with a bachelor’s degree in film, television, and radio from the Park School of Communications. Bethmann has been supported and recognized by a number of organizations, most recently including Big Sky Pitch (2023), DOC NYC 40 under 40 (2024), and the New America Fellowship (2024).
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Late Fame
Based on a novella by Arthur Schnitzler (Eyes Wide Shut) this is a sly, poignant comedy about vanity and art from director Kent Jones, starring Willem Dafoe as a mailman belatedly acclaimed for a book of poetry he wrote in his youth.
Memory of Princess Mumbi
In 2093, a filmmaker arrives in the African village of Umata, where he meets Princess Mumbi, a woman torn between love, legacy, and the future of storytelling. It's a fabulous genre-blending fable about memory, invention and cinematic resistance.
Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.
Beau Travail
Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Claire Denis' transfixing Beau Travail is set in East Africa. Sgt Galoup (Denis Lavant) reflects on his time in the French Foreign Legion, and the impact of the handsome Sentain (Gregoire Colin).