INDIgenesis: GEN2 opens with a presentation recontextualizing James Cruze’s 1923 silent feature The Covered Wagon. The epic Western cast hundreds of Native Americans as Hollywood’s stereotypical American Indians, including curator Missy Whiteman’s own family members from the Northern Arapaho Tribe. To engage with this fraught history, the film is presented with a contemporary live score composed and performed by Michael Wilson (Ojibwe), which incorporates recordings of Arapaho songs, along with cast members’ photographs and stories. A blessing precedes the screening and discussion follows. 1923, US, DCP, 98 min.
What Does It Mean to Have an Indigenous Lens in Film?
Native Americans make up only around 0.4 percent of characters in prime-time television and popular films, according to a recent study; even fewer can be found behind the camera lens. In conjunction with the INDIgenesis film series, four voices in Indigenous film—filmmakers Sky Hopinka, Adam Khalil, and Alex Lazarowich, and the Sundance Institute's Hud Oberly—consider what it means for Native people to bring their own stories and worldviews to film audiences.
A New Gaagiixiid Story: Gwaai Edenshaw on Indigenous Language and Making the First Film in Haida
"One of the things we held high was the question: who are we making the movie for? We decided that the movie we were making was for Haida people." Michael Wilson interviews Gwaai Edenshaw, co-director of Sgaawaay K’uuna (Edge of the Knife), the first feature film in Haida, about Indigenous language, the process of creating modern Indigenous works rooted in tradition, and the role of an entire community in bringing the film to reality.
The (Un)Covered Wagon: An Arapaho Filmmaker Unpacks the Complexities of an Early Western
Missy Whiteman has a complicated relationship to The Covered Wagon, a 1923 silent film considered one of the first westerns: it's deeply racist, yet it's a source of pride on the Wind River reservation, because many Arapaho people—including her relatives—appeared as extras. As curator of the INDIgenesis film festival, she selected the film for opening night, where it will be recontextualized through a contemporary score performed live by Michael Wilson (Anishinaabe), special guests, and a presentation of historic photos shared by her father, Ernest Whiteman. The photos offer a frame for her understanding of the legacy of her people, family history, and work as a filmmaker today. Here, she shares these images along with music, text, and audio from a recent conversation with her father about The Covered Wagon and its meaning then and now.
“A difference between learning and knowing is little more than asking questions without the entitlement of an answer, and honoring the vulnerability in saying and hearing, ‘I don’t know.’” In his Artist Op-Ed, experimental filmmaker Sky Hopinka ruminates on power, privilege, and identity—including his own—as he responds to the burden of representation and authority placed on groups of traditionally oppressed people.
