WE ARE THE WARRIORS - Documentary

The town of Wells, Maine, decides the fate of its American Indian mascot after facing public allegations of racist behavior at a high school football game. 

Recently aired on Maine Public Television!

As the harmful phenomenon of Native American mascots continues to be challenged nationally, public school systems are addressing their own use of Indigenous team names, icons, and imagery. We Are The Warriors is a documentary following residents of Wells, a small town in Maine, as they take on this polarizing issue after facing public allegations that Warriors football fans mocked Indigenous culture. The school district investigates the incident and forms a Mascot Advisory Committee to hear Wabanaki perspectives and consider the fate of their beloved mascot.

We Are The Warriors reveals how difficult conversations about identity and history are key to addressing Native American mascots.  The film’s Co-Directors, both graduates of Wells High School, gathered interviews and insights from residents of Wells and Wabanaki people from what is now Maine, Québec, and the Canadian Maritimes. Revelations about the town’s brutal colonial history and difficult conversations about the actual impact of the intended honor were key to changing hearts and minds of committee members. The film highlights evolving opinions of residents with a secondary focus on the history of the region, and after months of informed consideration, the committee votes to recommend retiring the mascot to the school board and the policy is adopted. Winner of the 2023 Maine International Film Festival’s Tourmaline Prize for best feature made in Maine.

FILMMAKERS

David Camlin (Producer/Director/Editor) is an independent filmmaker, editor, and video producer who is drawn to stories about human connection. His recent work includes Mary and Molly (2023), a short animated film about a young woman discovering her Penobscot heritage co-directed with and adapted from a play by Donna Loring; and Welcome to Commie High (2020), a feature length documentary about the founding and legacy of an alternative public high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that has been broadcast nationwide by PBS stations. El Lobo y La Paloma (2019) is a flamenco inspired live performance about loss, grief, and our connection to the spiritual world with accompanying educational material currently available in corrections facilities nationwide via the tablet based learning system Edovo, and through online and theatrical screenings.

Megan Grumbling (Producer/Director) is a writer, editor, teacher, and writing mentor. She earned her Master’s Degree in cultural reporting at New York University, and since then has written regularly about film, theater, and social issues for the Portland Phoenix, Dispatch, The Chart and other journals. Her recent publications include Persephone in the Late Anthropocene, a collection of poetry exploring environmental crisis and the nature of story itself; and Booker's Point, an oral history-inspired portrait-in-verse about an old Maine woodsman and his home on Ell Pond. She also wrote and co-directed the short film Carrying Place, an allegory about cultural amnesia that was featured as part of Best of the Maine International Film Festival and screened on Maine Public Television; and she shares writer-director credit on the immersive film installation She Dives Down, about the fluid nature of narrative.