The award-winning film, “Coming to Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indian,” by Anne Makepeace, is back by popular demand in the Tread of Pioneers’ winter film series. It will screen at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 16 at the Chief Theater.

The film tells the dramatic story of Edward S. Curtis, one of the most famous photographers of the 20th century, who dedicated his life to documenting traditional Indian life before it disappeared. Curtis abandoned his family and career as a successful portrait photographer and spent 30 years creating an astonishing body of work, traveling thousands of miles, capturing Native American culture that included 10,000 audio recordings of music and language, 20 volumes of ethnographic text, a full-length motion picture and 40,000 photographs.

The film takes the audience to the tribes where descendants of Curtis’ subjects tell the story and meaning behind the haunting images. This film has a special connection to the Tread of Pioneers Museum, since the museum owns 12 original Curtis photogravures in its collection. The images are part of a large collection of stunning Native American artifacts donated to the museum by the Pleasant and Carpenter families of Maybell and Hayden.

The film is free. For more information, visit treadofpioneers.org.

‘I Am Not Your Negro’ screens Monday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Bud Werner Memorial Library’s Indie Lens Pop-Up season continues with a free screening of “I Am Not Your Negro,” a documentary film by Raoul Peck in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, at 6:30 p.m. Monday in Library Hall. This film was one of the most acclaimed films of the year and an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, to be called “Remember This House.” The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends — Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. But at the time of Baldwin’s death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of his manuscript.

Now, filmmaker Peck envisions the book Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin’s original words, spoken by Samuel L. Jackson, and a flood of rich archival material. “I Am Not Your Negro” is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for.

Visit steamboatlibrary.org/events for more information about this film and other Indie Lens Pop-Up events.