Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil: Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]
Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil, Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild], 2026. Courtesy of the artists
A formally audacious act of reclamation, Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild], by acclaimed Ojibwe artist-filmmakers Adam and Zack Khalil—directors of the landmark INAATE/SE (2016) and core contributors to the public-secret society New Red Order—is both a searing indictment of institutions holding Indigenous Ancestors and a stirring testament to those working to bring them home. Winner of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival’s NEXT Audience Award, the film follows the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance, a coalition of specialists from tribes across Michigan, in its decades-long effort to press museums, universities, and archives to return human remains stolen from Indigenous communities. The film moves through vérité observation, essay, and kaleidoscopic animation to expose the racialized science that sustains these collections—and to bend time and space toward an Anishinaabe understanding of relation. Past, present, and future fold into one another, the Earth emerges as a living presence rather than inert ground, and Ancestors are active participants in the work of return.
Followed by a conversation with Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil.
Presented in partnership with the Center for Native Futures.
2026, Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil, United States/Denmark
In English and Anishinaabemowin with English subtitles
Format: DCP
80 min.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Adam Khalil, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is an artist whose practice attempts to subvert traditional forms of image-making through humor, relation, and transgression. Khalil is the co-director and co-editor of the feature documentary INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place./ it flies. falls./] (2016), which premiered as the closing-night film of the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight Film Festival, and the experimental documentary short The Violence of a Civilization Without Secrets (2017), which premiered at Sundance. Khalil is a core contributor to New Red Order and a co-founder of COUSIN Collective. Khalil’s work has been exhibited and screened at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Tate Modern, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Walker Art Center, Lincoln Center, Palais de Tokyo, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Creative Time, the 2019 Toronto Biennial, the 2019 Whitney Biennial, Sharjah Biennial 15, and Counterpublic Triennial 2023, among other institutions. Khalil is the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including a 2021 Creative Capital Award, 2020 Herb Alpert Award, Sundance Art of Nonfiction, Jerome Artist Fellowship, Cinereach, and the Gates Millennium Scholarship.
Zack Khalil, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a filmmaker and artist whose work centers Indigenous narratives in the present—and looks toward the future—through innovative nonfiction forms. Khalil is a core contributor to New Red Order, a public-secret society that calls attraction toward indigeneity into question, yet promotes this desire and enjoins potential non-Indigenous accomplices to participate in the co-examination and expansion of Indigenous agency. Khalil is the co-director and co-editor of the feature documentary INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place./ it flies. falls./] (2016), which premiered as the closing-night film of the Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight Film Festival, and the experimental documentary short The Violence of a Civilization Without Secrets (2017), which premiered at Sundance. Khalil also works professionally as a video editor, most recently co-editing Alison O’Daniel’s feature film The Tuba Thieves (2023), which premiered at Sundance. His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance Film Festival, New York Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Walker Art Center, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Creative Time, the 2019 Toronto Biennial, the 2019 Whitney Biennial, the 59th Venice Biennale, Sharjah Biennial 15, and Counterpublic Triennial 2023, among other institutions. Khalil is the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants, including a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Sundance Art of Nonfiction, and the Gates Millennium Scholarship.
ACCESSIBILITY
Conversations at the Edge events have live captions (CART). The Siskel Film Center is fully ADA accessible and its theaters are equipped with hearing loops. For other accessibility requests, please visit saic.edu/access or write cate@saic.edu.
TICKETS
$14 General public
$9 Students & seniors
$8 Film Center members
$8 SAIC staff & faculty & AIC staff
FREE for SAIC students with a valid ID
All CATE programs are free for SAIC students. Unless otherwise noted, SAIC student tickets are released five days prior to showtime. Tickets must be picked up in person from the Siskel Film Center box office. A student ID is required.
RESOURCE GUIDES
Articles, interviews, and other material related to upcoming artists and events. Coming soon.