Category Archives: film

Ian Garrett GROUNDWORKS

GROUNDWORKS travels from traditional acorn gathering spots to the studios where the “Groundworks” performance was rehearsed before being shared at sunrise on Alcatraz—nearly 50 years after the Indians of All Tribes occupied the island and brought attention to Native American rights. Originally initiated by contemporary dance company Dancing Earth Creations, the “Groundworks” project was designed to amplify the oft-forgotten Native presence everywhere in the Americas.

Groundworks weaves together four artists’ stories and their contemporary ways of sharing traditional Indigenous knowledge. By exploring their creative practices, it highlights these Native artists’ contemporary relationships to the Pomo, Ohlone, Tongva, and Wappo/Onastatis territories, languages and traditions. Their efforts to “re-story” the land through creative reclamation are important facets of the Land Back movement.

Bernadette Smith is a Pomo singer, musician, and playwright from the Point Arena Manchester Band of Pomo Indians. She is an activist leader involved with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and brought her whole family to Standing Rock to protect water rights. She is currently working on reclaiming land traditionally used by her tribe for their acorn harvest, and on protecting the source of those acorns—the tan oak—from hack-and-squirt clearing to make way for managed redwoods.

Profiled in the documentary are Ras K’dee, Pomo, a musician with ties to multiple bands in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties; Bernadette Smith, singer and dancer from the Manchester-Point Arena Band of Pomo Indians; Kanyon Sayers-Roods, a multidisciplinary Ohlone artist from Indian Canyon, a sovereign Indian Nation outside of Hollister, California; and L. Frank, a Tongva-Acjachemen artist, tribal scholar, canoe builder, and language advocate.

We spoke with director, producer, writer and cinematographer, Ian Garrett, about his film, GROUNDWORKS, via Skype on May 16, 2023.

GROUNDWORKS will be screening at the Mendocino FilmFestival on June 4 at 3pm in the Festival Tent. A special program with Coastal Pomo dancers will open the program and a panel discussion will follow.

The Pirate Radio Broadcaster Who Occupied Alcatraz and Terrified the FBI https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-pirate-radio-broadcaster-who-occupied-alcatraz-and-terrified-the-fbi?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Red Natural History https://socialtextjournal.org/periscope_topic/red_natural_history/?link_id=3&can_id=26389c9ba4e6ef1db60b08fdce8085f1&source=email-duplicate-me-4-section-template-2&email_referrer=email_1839282&email_subject=red-natural-history-a-growing-movement-of-scientists-and-scholars

Maria Niro – THE ART OF UN-WAR: KRZYSZTOF WODICZKO

Maria Niro is a New York City-based artist and award-winning filmmaker whose work has been broadcasted on television and screened in theatres, festivals, and museums worldwide. She is a member of New Day Films, a filmmaker-run distribution company providing social issue documentaries to educators founded by American Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist Julia Reichert in 1971.

She serves on the advisory board of More Art, a nonprofit organization that supports collaborations between professional artists and communities to create public art and educational programs that inspire social justice.

As the National Gallery of Art put it for the East Coast Premiere of The Art of Un-War:

“Internationally renowned artist Krzysztof Wodiczko has dedicated his work and life to denouncing militarization and war. Maria Niro’s recent documentary The Art of Un-War follows Wodiczko’s trajectory from his birth in Warsaw during World War II, to his expulsion from Poland by the communist regime, to today. Combining sculptural elements and technology, Wodiczko’s projects often function as interventions in public spaces, disrupting the valorization of state-sanctioned aggression. Since the 1980s, his deft, site-specific projections of images onto the facades of office and government buildings have grown to incorporate recordings of personal stories told by war veterans, refugees, and immigrants, projected directly onto war memorials, often animating the busts of revered historic leaders. Niro documents many of his major works, including The Homeless Vehicle Project (1988–1989), created in collaboration with homeless communities in Montreal, Philadelphia, and New York City; The Hiroshima Projection (1999), projected onto the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan; and the as-yet-unrealized project of transforming Paris’ monument to war, the Arc de Triomphe, into a temporary site for peace activism.”

TOWN DESTROYER: Alan Snitow & Deborah Kaufman

As a nation, we are in the throes of a re-examination of history, but whose history, and who gets to tell it, and how do we live today with various versions of our history, that were memorialized in the past? How do we best evaluate and live with the impacts of different versions of history and the potential harm and even re-traumatization that a particular version creates?

What role does art play in this process? whose art? and for whom?

These are among the questions addressed by the filmmakers, Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman, in their documentary, TOWN DESTROYER, which screens on Friday, June 2nd, at 1:00 PM at The Coast Cinemas.

You may recall the furor over whether or not to destroy or cover up the 13 panels of the 1930s murals by Popular Front artist, Victor Arnautoff, THE LIFE OF WASHINGTON, at San Francisco’s George Washington High School. Snitow & Kaufman film students, parents, Native American activists, artists of different ethnicities, scholars, and museum directors, all against a background of vivid cinematography of the controversial panels, as well as many other relevant works of art, both at the high school, and elsewhere across the country.

Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman’s films include the award-winning “Company Town,” “Between Two Worlds,” “Thirst”, “Secrets of Silicon Valley”, and “Blacks and Jews.”

Alan was a producer at the KTVU-TV News, the Bay Area Fox affiliate, for 12 years. Before that, he was an award winning News Director at KPFA-FM. He has served on the Boards of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, Film Arts Foundation, California Media Collaborative, Food and Water Watch, and much more.

Deborah Kaufman founded and for 13 years was Director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the first and largest independent Jewish film showcase in the world. She has been a Board member of the California Council for the Humanities, the New Israel Fund, and Amnesty International USA. She has been a consultant, programmer, lecturer, and activist with a variety of human rights, multicultural and media arts organizations.

We spoke with Deborah and Alan on May 8, 2023 via Skype.

“Early Days” Pioneer Monument by Frank Happersberger, Installed 1894 in SF Civic Center Plaza

These High School Murals Depict an Ugly History. Should They Go? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/arts/design/george-washington-murals-ugly-history-debated.html?searchResultPosition=1

Think Confederate monuments are racist? Consider pioneer monuments https://theconversation.com/think-confederate-monuments-are-racist-consider-pioneer-monuments-100571

San Franciscans demand removal of anti-native monument https://sf.curbed.com/2017/8/22/16184590/pioneer-monument-confederate-statues

California reparations panel OKs state apology, payments https://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/california-reparations-task-force-to-vote-on-18082723.php

David Treuer – The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present https://forthright.media/2019/03/14/david-treuer-the-heartbeat-of-wounded-knee-native-americafrom-1890-present/

Benjamin Madley – AN AMERICAN GENOCIDE: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe 1846-1873 https://forthright.media/2016/10/05/benjamin-madley-an-american-genocide-the-united-states-and-the-california-indian-catastrophe-1846-1873/

Clarence Lusane – TWENTY DOLLARS AND CHANGE: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy https://forthright.media/2023/01/12/clarence-lusane-twenty-dollars-and-change-harriet-tubman-and-the-ongoing-fight-for-racial-justice-and-democracy/

Stan Rushworth – WE ARE THE MIDDLE OF FOREVER: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth https://forthright.media/2022/08/11/stan-rushworth-we-are-the-middle-of-forever-indigenous-voices-from-turtle-island-on-the-changing-earth/

Daniel Golding – CHASING VOICES: The Story of John Peabody Harrington https://forthright.media/2022/05/10/daniel-golding-chasing-voices-the-story-of-john-peabody-harrington/

Gale Anne Hurd MANKILLER https://forthright.media/2018/05/31/gale-anne-hurd-mankiller/

William Hogeland – THE AUTUMN OF THE BLACK SNAKE: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West https://forthright.media/2017/07/19/william-hogeland-the-autumn-of-the-black-snake-the-creation-of-the-u-s-army-and-the-invasion-that-opened-the-west/

JAMIE MACGILLIVRAY: The Renegade’s Journey by John Sayles, 2022

BODY PARTS: Kristy Guevara-Flanagan & Helen Hood Scheer

The documentary, BODY PARTS, traces the evolution of “sex” on-screen from a woman’s perspective, uncovering the uncomfortable realities behind some of the most iconic scenes in cinema history and celebrating the courageous individuals leading the way for change. It’s an eye-opening investigation into the making of Hollywood sex scenes, shedding light on the actors’ real-life experiences, and tracing the legacy of exploitation of women in the entertainment industry, as well as recent hard fought changes in that industry.

On May 1, 2023, we spoke with Director, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, and Producer, Helen Hood Scheer, about BODY PARTS, which will be screening at this year’s Mendocino Film Festival at Crown Hall on Sunday June 4 at 1pm.

Kristy Guevara-Flanagan is an Associate Professor at UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television, where she heads the MFA Directing Documentary concentration. She has been making documentary films that focus on gender and representation for nearly two decades, starting with a 1999 experimental documentary about a blow-up doll (which screened at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, among other venues). Guevara-Flanagan’s documentary and experimental films have screened at the Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, and HotDocs film festivals and the Getty Museum. Her work has been broadcast on PBS and the Sundance Channel, received numerous awards, and been funded by ITVS, the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Institute, Latino Public Broadcasting and California Humanities.

Helen Hood Scheer  is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, freelance producer, and associate professor at California State University Long Beach, where she spearheads the creative nonfiction track and serves as the internship advisor for students in the Department of Film and Electronic Arts. In 2023, she won CSULB’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Throughout her instruction, service, and professional work, Helen is a strong advocate for students. In 2020, she  received the  Advancement of Women Award from the  CSULB President’s Commission on the Status of Women, and both Helen and her students were  featured in Claiming the Director’s Chair, an article expressing the CSU’s commitment to preparing  the next generation of female filmmakers for California’s multi-billion dollar entertainment industry.

Kathy Kasic & John Priscu THE LAKE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD

Sacramento State University Professor, Kathy Kasic, in Antarctica documenting the SALSA Project (photo courtesy of Billy Collins)

The Bozeman Doc Series afforded us the opportunity to interview the filmmaker of the film, of THE LAKE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD, Kathy Kasic, and the ‘main character,’ Professor of Ecology in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at MSU Bozeman, John Priscu.

John Priscu holding a container extracted from Mercer Lake

He has been organizing expeditions since 1984. He is a principal investigator in the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project and SALSA, the Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access project, which is the subject of this film. His work, and the work of his teams, have revolutionized our understanding of our Earth, as well as the diversity of life on our planet and beyond.

Kathy Kasic is a director/cinematographer and Associate Professor at California State University Sacramento. Twenty years ago she traded researching evolutionary biology in the Ecuadorian Amazon for filmmaking. Since then her artistic vision and craving for adventure have brought her to film off the bow of a ship, underwater in wild mountain rivers, and on the ice fields of Greenland and Antarctica. Using a sensorial emphasis on place to unveil the human relationship with the natural world, her 100+ productions have appeared at international festivals, on television (BBC, Discovery, Smithsonian, PBS, National Geographic), art galleries, museums (The Hirshhorn, Portland Art Museum, The Crocker), and won numerous awards. Most recently, Kasic field directed for BBC’s Earth Shot: Repairing Our Planet (feat. David Attenborough and Prince William) and directed The Lake at the Bottom of the World, a sensory vérité feature film about an international team of scientists exploring a subglacial lake 3,600 feet beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. She has been part of three National Science Foundation grants and mentored 12 graduate students. She believes that filmmaking is a way to give voice to what is not voiced, to see and hear more deeply, and to foster compassion across cultures.

THE LAKE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD will be screening at the Emerson Crawford Theater on Sunday, April 30th, 2023 at 7pm.

You can find out more here: http://www.bozemandocseries.org

Q&A: Sac State film professor Kathy Kasic returns from Antarctic expedition https://statehornet.com/2019/02/qa-sac-state-film-professor-kathy-kasic-returns-from-antarctic-expedition/

The Lake at the Bottom of the World site: https://www.antarcticlakefilm.com/

Eric Bendick PATH OF THE PANTHER

In this edition of Radio Goes to the Movies, we inquire about a new documentary from Bozeman based Grizzly Creek Films with director, Eric Bendick, PATH OF THE PANTHER.

Drawn in by the haunting specter of the Florida panther, it follows a wildlife photographer, veterinarians, ranchers, conservationists, and Indigenous people, who find themselves on the front lines of an accelerating battle between the forces of renewal and the forces of destruction that have pushed the Everglades to the brink of ecological collapse.

Once ubiquitous in North and South America, but now perched on the edge of extinction, this perilously small, sole remaining population of the panther east of the Mississippi is an emblem of our once connected world. A vision of what could be again.

We spoke with the Emmy Award winning director of Path of the Panther, Eric Bendick, about his work and this powerful new film via Skype on April 5, 2023.

It will be premiering on the National Geographic/Disney+ channel on April 28, 2023.

Source: FloridaWildlifeCorridor.org; Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

You can view Eric’s films, CHASING GHOSTS, https://dceff.org/film/chasing-ghosts/

and THE WILD DIVIDE https://dceff.org/film/wild-divide/

LTE: FWP proposals would put mountain lions in peril https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/opinions/letters_to_editor/letter-to-the-editor-fwp-proposals-would-put-mountain-lions-in-peril/article_505ce7d4-ee7c-11ed-8bdd-73f1fbc85aab.html

Rob Grabow THE YEAR OF THE DOG

The Bozeman Film Society begins their 2023 season of bringing outstanding films to Bozeman with the locally produced film, THE YEAR OF THE DOG, screening at the Ellen Theatre on Jan. 4th. We spoke with Rob Grabow, who wrote, produced, co-directed, co-edited, and starred in, this film.

A portion of the proceed benefits the Heart of the Valley Animal Shelter.

As it says on the film’s website, https://www.theyearofthedogmovie.com/

Rob landed his first movie role at 15 in the Oscar-nominated film starring Ethan Hawke, Snow Falling on Cedars. He’s been hooked since then. More recently, he has had speaking roles in the Syfy series Z Nation and the critically acclaimed film Mickey and the Bear, which premiered at Cannes and SXSW film festivals.

He wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the multi-award-winning short film Method, which premiered at the Chelsea Film Festival, where Academy Award-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) awarded Rob the Best Original Screenplay award. Rob was also nominated for Best Actor and Best Director at the Beaufort International Film Festival. He is an alum of the MFA Acting program at the Actor’s Studio Drama School in New York.

Some of Rob’s more esoteric life highlights include backpacking into Egypt two weeks before the war in Iraq, consulting Bhutan on its public advertising policy, and traveling to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake to write an article for Rolling Stone magazine.

Also featured is Michael Spears, the famous Lakota actor who has lived in Bozeman for 17+ years. Michael Spears’s role as Otter in Dances with Wolves (1990) catapulted him into film, music, and public speaking. Some of Spears’s career highlights since Dances with Wolves include his role as Dog Star in Spielberg’s 2005 miniseries Into the West and his role as Tenkill in Angels in Stardust (2014), for which he received critical acclaim in The New York Times. In 2014 and 2015, Spears played Savanukah in Colonial Williamsburg’s open-air stage production of The Beloved Women of Chota, the first Indigenous-centric production of its kind for Colonial Williamsburg. Spears also works in the film industry as a technical adviser for Native American cultures, soundtrack recording artist, and voiceover actor. When not filming, he travels as a keynote speaker on topics such as indigenous health and wellness, mental health, and Lakota spirituality.

Of course, one of Rob’s co-stars is Caleb, a rescue dog who had bounced between foster homes for years because he was reportedly “too much dog”—is there such a thing? He eventually landed in the loving care of Cathy and Gregg Pittman of the Performing Animal Troupe. His crucial performance as Yup’ik, in The Year of the Dog marks Caleb’s feature-film debut. Rumors of Brando reincarnated floated around set.

Jon Proudstar is a veteran actor of forty-two productions. He is currently a reoccurring character on FX/Disney’s Reservation Dogs. Jon had six big releases in 2021, which include Reservation Dogs, The Heart Stays, Wastelander, Deep Woods, and Mammoth. A product of the Sundance Institute’s 1997 Native American Writers Lab, Proudstar was chosen for the 2005 Directors Lab, where he worked alongside Ed Harris, Stanley Tucci, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Robert Redford. Some of Proudstar’s more notable films are Bodies, Rest & Motion (1993 Cannes Film Festival), Skinwalkers, Barking Water, and Four Sheets to the Wind. Jon trained at Los Angeles Theatre and with legendary acting coach Joan Darling.

Darwin Lumbattis is a Butte-based Army Veteran who served 16 years including active-duty combat in Iraq from 1990-1992 before retiring as a Calvary Scout. He is an avid dog-safety advocate and founder of the Rocky Mountain Working Dogs. Darwin served as a key advisor on all matters concerning weight pulling — he also proved his acting chops during an audition and landed a key speaking role in the film.

Richard Gray MURDER AT YELLOWSTONE CITY

Richard Gray has directed movies such as Robert the Bruce, Broken Ghost and Sugar Mountain. His latest film, MURDER AT YELLOWSTONE CITY, is the first feature length film to have been shot at the new Yellowstone Film Ranch outside of Pray, MT.

In this interview, we discuss the challenges of filming during Covid; his partnership with Livingston’s Carter Boehm and Chico Hot Spring proprietor, Colin Davis, in building the Yellowstone Film Ranch; their efforts to help pass The Montana Economic Development Industry Advancement (MEDIA) Act; and prospects for the Montana Film Industry after its passage.

The Bozeman Film Society will be premiering MURDER AT YELLOWSTONE RANCH on Friday, July 22 at the historic Ellen Theater. They post this at their website: The once peaceful and booming Yellowstone City has fallen on hard times, but when a local prospector strikes gold, things seem to be turning around. Any hope is soon shattered when the prospector is found dead and the Sheriff quickly arrests a mysterious newcomer. But nothing is so simple in this sleepy western town, and more than a few of the locals have secrets to keep and reasons to kill. As the brutal murders continue, pitting neighbor against neighbor, Yellowstone City goes down a bloody path to a final showdown that not all will survive. 123 minutes. NR. Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Thomas Jane, Isaiah Mustafa, Anna Camp, Aimee Garcia, Emma Kenney, with Nat Wolff, and Richard Dreyfuss.

We interviewed director/producer Richard Gray on July 11, 2022.

Articles pertinent to this interview:

https://bozemanfilmsociety.org/event/murder-at-yellowstone-city/

‘Murder at Yellowstone City’ Review: A Well-Crafted Mix of Traditional Western and Murder Mystery Elements https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/murder-at-yellowstone-city-review-1235301280/

Yellowstone Film Ranch https://bigskyjournal.com/yellowstone-film-ranch/

Alana Waksman WE BURN LIKE THIS

The film, WE BURN LIKE THIS, is a debut feature written, directed and produced by Alana Waksman.

It’s a coming-of-age story of historical trauma, survival, and healing. When 22-year-old Rae, a descendant of Holocaust survivors, is targeted by Neo-Nazis in Billings, Montana, her ancestors’ trauma becomes real. It’s inspired by true events and features a terrific ensemble cast of largely Montana actors, as well as film crew.

We spoke with Alana Waksman on June 10, 2022.

From the website https://www.weburnlikethis.com/

director’s statement
I never met my grandparents. They were taken from their homes near Radomsko, Poland in 1942 and survived forced labor camps as young teenagers in Russia. I have been told that my grandfather survived a period of time by eating grass. After the war, my grandparents found themselves at a displaced persons camp in Germany. This is where my dad was born, and two years later they were able to immigrate to Brooklyn, New York. My grandparents were proud to be Americans, but my father grew up ashamed of his immigrant and Jewish identities as it was often the reason he was singled out, threatened, and bullied.
The day after the 2016 election, Neo-Nazi pamphlets showed up on the doorsteps of Har Shalom Synagogue in Missoula, Montana where I was living at the time. For the first time in my life, my family’s history was suddenly very real.
I made this film in order to sort through my thoughts about my identity, the inherited effects of historical trauma, and what self-acceptance and self-love looks like. We Burn Like This is my debut feature, which I have been developing for the last seven years. It is my contribution to the greater healing of Jewish bigotry, which continues to be even more important, timely, and urgent.
The storming of the capitol on January 6th was a continued reminder after an exhausting and frightening four years that we are living beside much hatred and rage, and our new administration does not erase the true colors and feelings of our fellow Americans. I believe that it matters to share this story and inspire discussion about Jewish identity and historical trauma in present day America.
May we find a way to forgive, accept, and love ourselves and others. May we find the perfection even in the darkest times and in the darkest memories. May this film be a part of that process, and may we all radically heal.
-Alana Waksman

Only love can stop war: a Northern Cheyenne chief’s call to the world https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/17/only-love-can-stop-war-a-call-to-the-world-from-a-northern-cheyenne-chie