I’m Hacker News’ resident chud, but this is an actual issue. Natives exist only in relation to colonization. Prey, Apocalypto, and other well-made movies about first peoples ALWAYS include a white guy. Prey was egregious, could have easily only been about natives.
It is odd that Apocalypto included conquistadors as contact was very late in the story of the Maya:
Meanwhile, the two remaining Raiders chase Jaguar Paw towards the coast, where all three are astonished at the sight of Spanish conquistadors making their way to the shore. As the two Raiders are confounded by the Spanish ships and begin walking towards the coast, Jaguar Paw uses the distraction to flee and return to his village.
Although much reduced, a significant Maya presence remained into the Postclassic period after the abandonment of the major Classic period cities; the population was particularly concentrated near permanent water sources.[78] Unlike during previous cycles of contraction in the Maya region, abandoned lands were not quickly resettled in the Postclassic.
If you actually look at the link prpi provided, there are several examples. E.g., Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (yes), Hiawatha, and Kings of the Sun; if you allow animated films, there's Pachamama and The Emperor's New Groove. More recent examples not in that list include the Canadian movies Maina (2013) and Edge of the Knife (2018).
I don't know many movies set in pre-Columbian America at all. The idea that this was once the largest city in North America north of Mexico and it's as unknown as it is even to people who live nearby is crazy to me.
People talk about what they know. A more relevant list probably would be how many American natives are filmmakers. I assume that they have several films without any white on it.
One tragedy, on top of the mountain of others, is that their histories were passed down orally. Much of that has been destroyed.
One thing that struck me when I read about The Great Flood of 1862 [0], was that the Native Americans recognized the weather patterns for a series of atmospheric rivers and warned the settlers to relocate to the hills. (Tl;Dr: Central Valley ca was under water for months, Sacramento was abandoned) IIRC, it wasn’t until the 1990s that we had the ability to detect/”recognize” atmospheric rivers with satellites and finally gave them a name.
Here is a relevant wikipedia article:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_set_in_pre-Co...