Muckleshoot has been making movies about the tribe’s efforts to protect our culture, salmon, and the habitat we all depend on – and the film world is taking notice.

This year, our documentary “The Salmon People's Struggle to Survive: the Story of Muckleshoot Fisheries” was nominated for the 2024 Northwest Regional Emmy® Award for best long form production in the Historical/Cultural category. The nomination comes on the heels of last year’s Northwest Regional Emmy® Award for our “We Are Muckleshoot” TV commercial campaign. The 2024 awards will be presented next month in Seattle.

The honors don’t end there.

The “Struggle to Survive” documentary is also an official selection at two international film festivals. This month it will be featured at the Cine de las Americas Film Festival in Austin, TX. The festival promotes and empowers Latine and Indigenous stories that contribute to cross-cultural understandings by educating, entertaining, and challenging the arts community.

It was also selected for the World Whale Film Festival in Maui, which is focused on raising awareness about the ocean, marine wildlife conservation, Indigenous ecological knowledge, environmental stewardship, and solutions for the ocean and humankind.

Our efforts to put salmon on the silver screen also received attention in Wyoming where the short video, “Muckleshoot - Smoking Salmon and Preserving Tradition” featuring Tribal Councilman Mike Jerry Sr. and a group of tribal members. The piece won Best Film - Indigenous Director or Worldview at this year's Wild and Working Lands Film Festival.

Both films were commissioned by the Muckleshoot Tribal Council and produced by Groundswell Communications.