Smithsonian Celebrates 10 Years of the Mother Tongue Film Festival

The annual Mother Tongue Film Festival is celebrating its 10th year with 10 days of programming: four days of in-person and six days of virtual screenings. From Thursday, Feb. 20, to Sunday, Feb. 23, at venues on or near the National Mall, it will offer 23 films in over 25 languages from around the world. The digital portion of the festival will be held from Monday, Feb. 24, to Saturday, March 1, showcasing films from previous years. Viewers can watch the 2025 trailer for a dazzling glimpse of films that will be featured this year. Additionally, the festival’s new Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool-supported reel highlights films screened by or about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

“Celebrating our mother tongues—the languages we learned in childhood—reminds us of our shared humanity,” said Joshua Bell, festival founder, and co-director and curator of globalization in the Anthropology Department at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “Through the unparalleled medium of film, the Mother Tongue Film Festival showcases the diversity of the world’s mother tongues and presents other ways of seeing, knowing and being in the world.”

Since its inception in 2016, the festival has showcased the work of over 300 directors and screened more than 300 films in languages from nearly every continent on the globe. To see the breadth of these works, a comprehensive storymap of films presented by the festival over the years lists the films alphabetically and by continent, allowing viewers to scroll through and learn more about each film. For certain films, viewers can watch trailers or full films without leaving the map.

“Even before the United Nations declared an International Year of Indigenous Languages and then a Decade of Indigenous Languages, the festival had been presenting films from Indigenous communities and telling multi-faceted stories about the importance of cultural and language revitalization,” said Amalia Córdova, festival co-director and museum curator of world cultures at the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

The annual festival will open the week of the United Nations’ International Mother Language Day (Feb. 21) and will take place in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of the American Indian, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and at NYU Washington, DC.

The Mother Tongue Film Festival is hosted by Recovering Voices, an initiative of the Smithsonian founded in response to the global crisis of cultural knowledge and language loss. Viewers can visit the Mother Tongue Film Festival webpage for the schedule and more information. All screenings are free and open to the public. Festival highlights include:

Opening Ceremony and Singing Back the Buffalo
Thursday, Feb. 20; 7 p.m.
Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian
Following opening remarks, award-winning Cree filmmaker Tasha Hubbard’s feature-length film Singing Back the Buffalo will be screened. It is an intimate story of reimagining North America through the lens of buffalo consciousness and a potent dream of what is within people’s grasp. There will be a Q&A after the film with director Tasha Hubbard, moderated by Cindy Benitez (National Museum of the American Indian).

Reflecting on Returns: Fifty Years of Engaging Communities through the Human Studies Film Archive
Friday, Feb. 21; 1 p.m.  
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History
Over the past 50 years, the Human Studies Film Archive (HSFA) has become an unparalleled repository for film that documents cultural and linguistic diversity. A critical aspect of HSFA’s mission is to share these moving images with the world. Panelists including Alice Apley, Barbara Johnson, Chris Moore, Cliff Soren and Pam Wintle will share work highlights and aspects of this archival legacy with communities of origins: Ju/’hoansi in Namibia, Newar in Nepal and communities in the Cook Islands, El Salvador and northwest Argentina. The panel will be moderated by Joshua Bell (National Museum of Natural History).
Registration Required

Gwledd (The Feast)
Friday, Feb. 21; 7 p.m.
NYU Washington, DC
Gwledd (The Feast), a contemporary Welsh-language horror film, unfolds around a dinner party and the arrival of a young woman under mysterious circumstances. A virtual Q&A with director Lee Haven Jones will follow. Content advisory: This film contains strong graphic violence and is not suitable for individuals under 18. [Not Rated]
Registration Required

Various Programs
Saturday, Feb. 22; noon ET
Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History
A full day of screenings will be presented at the National Museum of Natural History starting at noon with the feature film Uproar, followed by two shorts programs, “Lives in Motion” and “Redemption and Duty,” and a program that meditates on communities and collections, closing with the award-winning film Dahomey.

Various Programs
Sunday, Feb. 23; 11 a.m. ET
Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
A family-friendly shorts program, three feature-length films and an experimental audiovisual artwork will be screened at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

Accessibility

Most of the films are fully open captioned or subtitled in English. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided for all introductory remarks, Q&As and discussions. The Closing Night archive-based audiovisual artwork is not captioned; some film excerpts are subtitled in English and others have no sound or translation. All venues are wheelchair accessible. For questions about access services, email folklife@si.edu.

The festival has received support from Ferring Pharmaceuticals, The Elizabeth and Whitney MacMillan Endowment, the Americas Research Network, and Wick and Bonnie Moorman.

About Recovering Voices

Recovering Voices is an initiative of the Smithsonian founded in response to the global crisis of cultural knowledge and language loss. It works with communities and other institutions to address issues of Indigenous language and retaining breadth of knowledge. Recovering Voices is a collaboration between staff at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of the American Indian, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and Asian Pacific American Center.

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