Nowa Cumig : The Drum Will Never Stop

Length : 72 minutes

Released in : 2012

* Currently in festival circuit



Production company : The Nowa Cumig Institute

Distributor / Education and digital rights : The Cinema Guild, NYC



Director : Marie-Michele Jasmin-Belisle

Producer : Takeo Koshikawa

Executive producer : Masaou Yamamoto

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Cast :



​Dennis Banks, Russell Means, The Most Venerable Fujii Guruji, June Yasuda (June-san), Philip Deere, Bill Whapepah, Thomas Banyacya, Larry BringingGood, Clyde Bellecourt, Zinzi Banks, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Kitaro, Tuscarora Chief Leon Locklear and many others. 



Narrated by Michael Horse, with an outstanding soundtrack provided by Kitaro, Pura Fe, Kirilola, Keith Secola, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Pak Poe, Cloud Face, Shonosuke Okura, François-H. Jasmin, World Beat and Dennis Banks himself.  



Synopsis : 

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The film tells the story of Dennis Banks, his three historical marches - 'The Longest Walk' (1978, 2008 and 2011), as well as his movement for justice, peace, and education, and the protection of culture, tradition and sacred sites.



Written and directed by a young filmmaker who followed him on the Longest Walk 2, to Japan and around the U.S., the film explores the life of Nowa Cumig (Dennis' Anishinabe name) as the singer, the grandfather, the walker, the environmentalist, the peace leader.



Filled with never-seen-before footage from the Custer trial and riots, the Longest Walk of 1978 and The Hopi Prophecy, as well as countless video archives and photographs from the Sacred Runs throughout Japan and the U.S., the film aims to look at the private life of A.I.M. co-founder Dennis Banks in the era that followed Wounded Knee.



We follow Dennis to Kitaro's home studio, a friend and fellow peace activist with whom Dennis participated in the United Nations 'COP10' environmental conference in Nagoya, Japan in 2010.



We witness one of the chiefs of the Tuscarora Nation Leon Locklear, in an impromptu blues jam in his round house during Dennis' visit while on The Longest Walk 2 .



We sit with Dennis and his granddaughter in a canoe afloat in the middle of Leech Lake, his home, listening to their candid talk on birds, health, and the spirit world.

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We delve into a side of the famous man who appears for the first time on film as the humble, humorous yet strong force behind the face of A.I.M., behind the Longest Walks, behind the Sacred Runs, behind the iconic mask of a revolutionary.

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The film, above all, speaks to all people and all life, of the current struggles in the face of the rising nuclear threat, and reveals incredibly timely speeches by Japanese high priest Fujii Guruji, Hopi Elder Thomas Banyacya, and Dakota Sioux singer Floyd Red Crow Westerman.



The film tells the story of his friendship with Buddhist monks, musicians and revolutionaries, their lifelong partnerships in peace and anti-nuclear walks worldwide; it tells the story of the Hopi Prophecy, and the three Longest Walks. It tells the story of those whose lives were changed by the beat of his drum; it tells the story of a people whose drum will never stop.



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