Indigenous Animation: A Conversation With Quinne Larsen and Amanda Strong

In a discussion published by the Sundance Institute for Native American Heritage Month, Indigenous animators Amanda Strong and Quinne Larsen explored the boundaries of language, storytelling taboos, and industry collaboration.

Strong, whose stop-motion short Inkwo: For When The Starving Return played in the animation shorts block at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, spoke about the practical challenges of maintaining cultural integrity within specialized production environments. A 2020 Sundance Native Filmmakers Lab alumna, Strong explained that working with non-Indigenous stop-motion specialists requires clear boundaries regarding artistic values.

“If you’re coming in and you’re someone who has a lot of experience and is coming in from industry, your ego has to stay at the door. Don’t compare us to some other space because we’re operating with different values and different systems,” said Amanda Strong.

The conversation, which brought together two artists who first crossed paths at the 2025 festival, touched directly on the cultural protocols required when depicting powerful or sensitive beings in animation. Strong said that her team worked closely with writer Richard Van Camp and various elders to address the protocol surrounding the creatures featured in Inkwo.

“The short used to be called what the creatures are called, and we actually changed the name. You can’t control when someone watches it and there’s rules around them like you can only talk about them when there’s snow on the ground.”

Larsen, a Chinook artist and 2023 Native Lab alumna whose short Field Recording also screened in the animation block at the 2025 festival, discussed her own upcoming slate of projects. Larsen said that she recently finished a mixed-media short for Adult Swim and is currently developing additional shorts focusing on intergenerational dynamics around language loss and recovery.

Reflecting on the role of language acquisition in her own creative process, Larsen described how learning Chinook altered her artistic perspective. Speaking about the emotional weight of bridging generational gaps in language use, Larsen pointed to the concept of nonlinear time in Indigenous cultures.

“When I learned it, it fixed something… [in Indigenous culture] we talk about [the] idea of nonlinear time – it sounds kind of crunchy, but I feel like when you learn language and can speak it, there’s something that gets knit back together,” said Quinne Larsen.

Both filmmakers addressed the systemic imbalance of Indigenous representation within the animation sector compared to traditional live-action filmmaking. While acknowledging that numerous Indigenous artists work across the animation industry, Strong emphasized the distinct lack of direct ownership and creative control at the institutional level.

“Animation is this other sector, that there’s absolutely a ton of indigenous people working within, but there’s less of us who have ownership. I hope to see more of that and like keep pushing for that representation in animation specifically,” said Strong.

Disclaimer: The views and cultural analyses presented in this article are for informational and entertainment purposes only. Information regarding legal disputes or financial data is based on available public records.