A native film festival has returned to the Walker Art Center for its second year of showcasing film that looks to the past, present and future to tell the stories and truths of native peoples.
Transcript
MARIE: This is Minnesota Native News, I’m Marie Rock. A native film festival has returned to the Walker Art Center for its second year of showcasing film that looks to the past, present and future to tell the stories and truths of native peoples.
MISSY WHITEMAN: This year we're, we're picking it up again to continue that legacy and to also acknowledge, you know, that history that native film has here in the twin cities.
MARIE: This week, we sit down with co-curator (and filmmaker) Missy Whiteman to discuss INDI-genesis: GEN2. Here’s reporter Cole Premo.
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[SCENE SOUND]
It’s an incredibly snowy day, and traffic is picking up outside the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
I meet Missy Whiteman at the art center’s Esker Grove restaurant, set on the first level with large windows facing the Sculpture Garden, the entire space glowing from the white snow reflection.
I’m here to talk with Missy Whiteman about the return of a film series that showcases native-made films. But it’s much more than just a film series.
First, an introduction...
MISSY: My name is Missy Whiteman and I belong to the northern Arapaho and Kickapoo nations, northern Arapaho from the wind river reservation in Wyoming. And then kickapoo from Oklahoma.
The 4-week-long INDIgenesis: Gen2 film series begins in mid-February, and features vintage films, like 1923’s The Covered Wagon, as well as new films like 2018’s Falls Around Her, featuring the iconic native actress Tehn-too Cardinal.
I asked her how the films were selected.
MISSY: We don’t necessarily look at the “It” director … We really look at it as, you know, how his film representative of native life and being indigenous and in also like looking at it from a cultural perspective, whether it being a full film like "edge of the knife", which is an entire indigenous language or whether it be, you know, opening night with covered wagon, which you know, is the first western.
Missy Whiteman actually has a deep family connection to The Covered Wagon, which will be presented a bit differently at the film series for the first night.
MISSY: Actually in this film, um, we're weak recontextualizing that film and we're adding a life score to that because that film is closely related to my family. And so I have great grandparents that are in that film that I have direct descendants too. Our family has photographs from that set and so that's going to be a part of the evening.
Aside from powerful feature-length movies, documentaries will play a big part in the film series, including Warrior Women. It tells the story of native mothers and daughters fighting for native rights in the American Indian Movement, also known as AIM.
[FILM SOUND]
The screening is also a chance to honor those Warrior Women.
MISSY: [05:00] It's a large community that's coming to the screening of women and women who are activists and that's an evening for us to have the opportunity to honor them, but to do it in a way that the directors want us to do that. Um, so again, that's a call to our warrior women's to come women's. It's a call to the warrior women of Minnesota to come to the screening and be acknowledged and honored
Minnesota connections abound in the film series, in all categories.
MISSY: We have Levi Corbine, he's actually from the blacks reservation and he produced Shinob 1 and we'll be screening that within native shorts. And then, um, we will also have locally produced films, youth films here we have in progress and we just are adding some of the Little Earth, a youth collective films to the media tech which will run all month long throughout the series in the small little theater next to the main theater near the main lobby.
And while traditional feature-length movies and short films are great, some of the featured projects really push the boundaries of filmmaking. Like, Biidaaban: First Light: An Interactive Virtual Reality Installation.
MISSY: I can't give it away. But it's really about a different realms.
Overall, Missy Whiteman says it’s more than a film series.
It’s about not only teaching native youth the ins-and-outs of filmmaking, but inspiring them to create and tell their own story.
MISSY: It is like everything that I do, everything that I create, whatever it is, it always. This is like the people that came before us, you know, our ancestors and then who's following, you know, those are always what we have in mind and who's going to carry her legacy forward. And that's, you know, our future generations.
The film series begins Feb. 15 and runs for 4 weeks. We couldn’t get to all the projects featured, so check out more on the Walker Art Center’s website. I’m Cole Premo.