How We Stand

Directed by Marie Clements

Tombs weaves together the triangular story points of three Oklahoma sisters and their mother who travel to Los Angeles as a part of a relocation program in the 1950s that gave Native Americans the opportunity to become “civilized” by getting jobs in urban centres. When they arrive, they begin to understand that like many east-to-west dreams, the reality is not the new beginning they sought. Abandoned by government policy and in acute poverty, they begin to search for their own, finding home in “the tombs” – the cemented riverways of LA. It is here a young mother is killed, and the lives of her children separate down three very different paths that emerge in 1970s Los Angeles – weaving together one telling, one flood.