Biography
John Trudell was an American Indian author, poet, actor, musician, and political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz. During most of the 1970s, he served as the chairman of the American Indian Movement, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After his pregnant wife, three children and mother-in-law were killed in 1979 in a fire at the home of his parents-in-law on the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes...
Known For
Complete Filmography
Lakota Nation vs. United States
2022
as Self (archive footage)
Poet Layli Long Soldier crafts a searing portrait of her Oyate’s connection to the Black Hills, through first contact and broken treaties to the promi...
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World
2017
as Self
Documentary about the role of Native Americans in popular music history, a little-known story built around the incredible lives and careers of the som...
Taking Alcatraz
2015
as Self (archive footage)
A documentary account by award-winning filmmaker John Ferry of the events that led up to the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz Island as tol...
Dark Blood
2012
as Indian #2
Filmed in 1993 but never completed due to River Phoenix's death, Dark Blood tells the story of Boy, a young widower living on a nuclear testing site i...
Reel Injun
2010
as Self
The evolution of the depiction of the various Native American peoples in cinema, from the silent era to the present day: how their image on the screen...
No More Smoke Signals
2009
as self
Kili Radio - "Voice of the Lakota Nation" - is broadcast out of a small wooden house that sits isolated on a hill, lost in the vast countryside of Sou...
The 11th Hour
2007
as Self
A look at the state of the global environment including visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. Featuring ongoing dia...
America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie
2005
as Black Hawk (voice)
America's Lost Landscape: The Tallgrass Prairie tells the rich and complex story of one of the most astonishing alterations of nature in human history...
A Thousand Roads
2005
as Narrator (voice)
The film threads together four stories, taking us into the life of a stressed-out Mohawk stockbroker in Manhattan; a young Inupiat girl sent to live w...
Trudell
2005
as Self / Narrator (voice)
A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances and politics.
Trudell
2005
Music
A chronicle of legendary Native American poet/activist John Trudell's travels, spoken word performances and politics.
Dreamkeeper
2003
as Coyote
In South Dakota, in an Indian reservation, an old storyteller Indian asks his grandson Shane, who is in trouble owing money to some bad guys, to take ...
Making a Noise: A Native American Musical Journey with Robbie Robertson
1999
as Self - Santee Sioux
This doc explores "The Band" guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson's Native American background. Half Mohawk on his mother's side, the film follow...
Smoke Signals
1998
as Randy Peone
Young Native American man Thomas is a nerd in his reservation, wearing oversize glasses and telling everyone stories no-one wants to hear. His parents...
Extreme Measures
1996
as Tony
Guy Luthan, a British doctor working at a hospital in New York, starts making unwelcome enquiries when the body of a man who died in his emergency roo...
On Deadly Ground
1994
as Johnny Redfeather
Forrest Taft is an environmental agent who works for the Aegis Oil Company in Alaska. Aegis Oil's corrupt CEO is the kind of person who doesn't care w...
Incident at Oglala
1992
as Self - National Spokesperson, American Indian Movement
On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a grou...
Incident at Oglala
1992
Music Consultant
On June 26, 1975, during a period of high tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, two FBI agents were killed in a shootout with a grou...
Thunderheart
1992
as Jimmy Looks Twice
A young mixed-blood FBI agent is assigned to work with a cynical veteran investigator on a murder on a poverty-stricken Sioux reservation.
Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier
1991
Thanks
An intimate exploration of the circumstances surrounding the incarceration of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of murder in 1977, w...
Powwow Highway
1989
as Louie Short Hair
Two Northern Cheyenne men take a road trip from Montana to New Mexico to bail out the sister of one of them who has been framed and arrested in Santa ...