‘Remaining Native’ Review: A Native American Takes Inspiration From Ancestors While Training for a Long-Distance Scholarship in Absorbing Doc

variety.com:

Joe Leydon Film Critic In recent years, there have been a number of dramas and documentaries detailing the appalling mistreatment of Native American children forcibly held in church- and state-run Indian Boarding Schools — ranging from the Taylor Sheridan-produced “1923” to the Oscar-nominated “Sugarcane” — for such historical overviews to comprise a subgenre.

Such eye-opening depictions of 19th and 20th-century atrocities, much like the contemporary accounts on the issue of Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women, are not merely instructive, but necessary.

Trouble is, that wealth of resources means an exceptional documentary like “Remaining Native” runs the risk of being passed over by viewers who assume there’s nothing more to be said on the subject.

That would be unfortunate and misguided. Director Paige Bethmann’s technically polished and utterly absorbing film skillfully forges a link between past and present by focusing on Kutoven “Ku” Stevens, a 17-year-old Native American determined to earn a University of Oregon scholarship in track — despite his living on the Yerington Paiute reservation in Northwest Nevada, a place rarely if ever visited by college scouts, and being the only cross-country runner at a high school that lacks a track coach.