About Us
Two histories, one people, one camera.
Tenneka Studios grew from a question that kept returning: Why are none of our stories in the movies?
Indigenous American history is not a footnote to someone else's story. It is its own continuous line — carried through nations, migrations, ceremonies, family records, oral traditions and generations of people who refused to disappear.
Under the creative direction of Southern Arawak, Tenneka Studios creates historical films centered on the civilizations, communities and lives conventional cinema has overlooked. We combine research, cultural memory and ambitious visual storytelling to bring those worlds to the screen with dignity, scale and beauty.
Our first feature, The Unconquered, arrives in Spring 2027.
Filmed with, not about
Every production begins with consent protocols written alongside the families and ceremony keepers on screen. Nothing is recorded that a community has asked us to keep closed.
Archive first
Allotment records, church ledgers, tintypes, cassette interviews. We digitize what families hold and return copies to every household that lends us their history.
Cinema, not a lecture
Wide anamorphic frames, live score, and patient hands. History buffs get the citations; movie goers get a film that moves.