Two movies chronicle Wounded Knee events

Film festival showcases Indian works from S.D.

BY PETER HARRIMAN

Argus Leader

South Dakota's modern history with Native Americans can be bracketed by seminal events at Wounded Knee.

The 1890 massacre signaled the end of traditional tribal nomadic existence, and the 1973 American Indian Movement occupation propelled a rebirth of commitment to tribal sovereignty and traditional culture.

And both were featured on the opening day of the 29th annual American Indian Film Festival. It began Saturday at the Galaxy Theater in San Francisco.

"Ghost Riders," a documentary on the annual Big Foot Memorial Ride commemorating the 1890 massacre, is directed by V. Blackhawk Aamodt and narrated by Benjamin Bratt.

"A Tattoo on My Heart," a documentary about the 30th anniversary of the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation, is directed by Rapid City lawyer Charles Abourezk and Brett Lawlor. Both films were shown Saturday.

"It will be quite a night. It will be South Dakota night," said Michael Smith, founder and director of the American Indian Film Institute organizing the festival. Since it began in 1975, the festival has shown more than 800 films.

"It's good for the film to get some recognition of some sort," Abourezk said of "A Tattoo on My Heart," which was premiering. "More important is the contact at film festivals. A lot of TV people and movie production companies will be there at the festival looking for products to purchase."

The documentary also has been submitted for entry into the Sundance Film Festival in January.

"Both films are done very nicely and will be well received," Smith said.

"Ghost Riders" is the third documentary on the Big Foot ride to be shown at the festival, according to Smith.

That ride began in 1986 when Birgil Kills Straight and four other Lakota riders reprised the December 1890 trek across South Dakota by the Minneconju leader Big Foot, his followers, and Hunkapas who fled the Standing Rock reservation when Sitting Bull was arrested and killed.

The Indians were trying to link up with the Oglalas in hopes of finding safety by spending winter with them in the Badlands. But they were intercepted by the Seventh Cavalry outside Wounded Knee, and an estimated 300 were massacred when the soldiers' attempt to disarm them erupted into violence.

Kills Straight and other riders made the ride from 1986 to 1990 to fulfill a spiritual leader's vision that the four-year journey would set to rest the souls of the people killed. Since 1990, the Big Foot Ride has continued, primarily as a way to keep Lakota youth in contact with their history.

"This film has a lot of emphasis on how the ride is put together. Our jury found that very intriguing, how it comes together and the support the riders have back there," Smith said.

1973 occupation

"A Tattoo on My Heart" is a series of recollections of participants in the 1973 occupation who returned to attend the 30th anniversary celebration in January 2003.

"We decided to interview those people who were still interested enough to show up at the 30th anniversary," Abourezk said. "We did not interview anybody who would be considered AIM leadership, and we did not interview people on the government side in this first documentary, although we have considered doing additional segments in the future.

"We just thought we were interested in hearing the voices of those everyday people who decided to be involved in Wounded Knee: what moved them to take that risk and make the sacrifices they did."

Three decades after the occupation, participants, for the most part, still take great pride in the standoff with state and national law enforcement agencies at Wounded Knee, and individuals tend not to embellish their own roles. "You find that sort of humility in the film," Abourezk said. "The stories are undertold, if anything. Somehow, that translates into giving them a lot of dramatic power."

Abourezk's father, former U.S. Sen. James Abourezk, helped resolve the Wounded Knee standoff and held Senate hearings on it.

Before law, Abourezk was a minority-affairs producer with South Dakota Public Television, and his first documentary, in 1989 ,examined the prevalence of AIDS on Indian reservations.

Waiting for interviews

He said he and Lawlor held off on making a Wounded Knee film until now because the interviews couldn't have been done earlier. "People were still concerned about prosecution or the government using these interviews against friends or family," he said.

During the 30th anniversary celebration, the filmmakers set up a studio at the Wounded Knee studio and interviewed the documentary's subjects there.

The film was edited in Seattle, and a final cut was completed only about a week ago, when a new song was added to the soundtrack.

"I'm glad we laid these interviews down on film," Abourezk said. "Since we made it, three or four participants have passed away. It was timely. If we wanted to lay down a piece of South Dakota history, it was important to get down there on the 30th anniversary."

Smith says "A Tattoo on My Heart" basically is retrospective but lends itself to the mood of Native people today. Because it has the potential to connect young people with the spirit of political activism exemplified by AIM at Wounded Knee. "It is certainly a film for the ages," Smith said.

Abourezk said he and Lawlor tapped into the universal literary theme of the heroic journey with their documentary.

"What I learned was, these people were all afraid, but they overcame their fears," he says. "The resulting experience they had transformed not only their lives but the lives of Indian people all across the U.S."

He said he thinks the accounts of the Wounded Knee participants, seasoned by 30 years, illustrate this: "The treasures in life are always on the other side of taking huge risks."