The Band's legend trades rock stardom for powwows and peyote ceremonies — and it's transcendent.
This doc explores "The Band" guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson's Native American background. Half Mohawk on his mother's side, the film follows him back to the Six Nations reservation in Ontario where he spent summers growing up and picked up his first guitar. The resulting album, "Contact From the Underworld of Red Boy", draws on his childhood First Nation influences and includes musical collaborations wth Native artists such as John Trudell, Rita Coolidge and Buffy Ste Marie.
Score
The album fusion: rock royalty meets powwow drums and ghost dance songs
Cinematography
Stunning Six Nations landscapes that feel like ancestral memory
Acting
Robertson's raw vulnerability — no rock star mask here
Director
Dana Heinz Perry
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film captures a pivotal 1990s moment when Native musicians began openly reclaiming rock and pop spaces, with Robertson using his platform to platform Trudell and Westerman.
Robertson hadn't visited Six Nations in decades before filming; his first guitar was a Christmas gift from a reservation cousin, not the rock origin story you'd expect.
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