- By Mabel Pais
LAKOTA NATION VS. THE UNITED STATES
Directed by Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli
Produced by Phil Pinto and Benjamin Hedin
‘LAKOTA NATION VS. UNITED STATES’ is a powerful and thought-provoking documentary chronicling the ongoing current struggle and journey of the Lakota people to reclaim their land and sovereignty and the legal battle they have waged against the United States government.
The Black Hills, the birthplace and life-giving land of the Lakota people, is the most sacred place on earth to them that has shaped thought, identity and philosophy for the Očéti Šakówiŋ since time immemorial.
Yet with the arrival of the first Europeans in 1492, the sacred land has been the site of conflict between the people it has nurtured, and the settler state seeking to exploit and redefine it in its own image. This powerful new documentary is a searing testament to the strength of the Oyate and a visually stunning rejoinder to the distorted image of a people long shaped by Hollywood. ‘Lakota Nation vs. United States’ is a lyrical and provocative testament to a land and a people who have survived removal, exploitation and genocide–and whose best days are yet to come.
Watch the official trailer – youtu.be/eV9Oeut62vw
Learn more at lakotanationvsus.movie
Jesse Short Bull (Co-Director)
Jesse Short Bull, Director, wrote and produced the 2013 short ‘Istinma,’ set in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts, Short Bull received a 2016 Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program Development Grant
and also attended the Creative Producing Summit at Sundance. In 2014 he was part of the effort to change the name of Shannon County to Oglala Lakota County in South Dakota. Currently employed by the Oglala Lakota tribal government, Short Bull is a member of the board of the Black Hills Film Festival. With the First Peoples Fund he leads youth filmmaking workshops in the Oglala Lakota Nation.
“LAKOTA NATION VS. THE UNITED STATES” is a story that I have a powerful connection to. My great-great grandfather, Tatanka Ptchela (Short Bull) was an active witness to the conflict between the two nations in the mid and late nineteenth century. He refused to sign the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty and lived his life resisting the encroachment of Lakota lands.
Five generations later, as a member of the Oglala Tetonowan Oyate, and employee of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, I bear witness to the efforts of people committed to getting the Black Hills back.
From the humblest of dreams, to the dedicated government-to-government conversations, I believe it is time to tell the story of America’s longest running failure to do the right thing,” said Jesse Short Bull.
“With the (current) U.S. government leadership in place, there is a sense of urgency to tell this story. It is a real fear of mine that as time passes by, future generations will still be fighting for their right to their Sacred He Sapa (Black Hills). This story needs an end, and that end is the return of our relative, the Black Hills. The Lakota nations involved with the Black Hills land claim are those I will work my hardest to represent fully and accurately. My grandfather, Tatanka Ptechela, refused to accept anything for the Blacks Hills, and I will approach my work on this film with the same standard as he did, committed to the people and the advancement of their desires.”
LAURA TOMASELLI (Co-Director/Editor)
Laura Tomaselli, Director and Editor is a filmmaker with credits spanning narrative, documentary, and commercial projects. Most recently, she edited the documentary features MLK/FBI and Surge as well as the nonfiction shorts ‘Feathers’ and ‘Lowland Kids.’ For her work on MLK/FBI Tomaselli received a Cinema Eye Award Nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Editing. Her films have screened at Sundance, SXSW, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Toronto International Film Festival.
She said, “While this history isn’t familiar to a majority of Americans, these landscapes certainly are. This rang true as our crew traveled through and around the Black Hills region on what felt like a surreal family vacation. Filming alongside tourists at sites like Mount Rushmore, the difference in our perspectives was consistently jarring. (The systematic extermination of the American buffalo is now a “Buffalo Hunt” roller- coaster adjacent to the set of Dances with Wolves.) From the outset of this project we felt a weight to visually represent the Black Hills as sacred and holy rather than a backdrop. In demolishing the sacred Six Grandfathers to make way for the construction of Mount Rushmore, interviewees would often invoke demolishing the Sistine Chapel as a metaphor. In this way our visual approach often became shortened to “film nature like a church.”
“We’re all familiar with that phrase by Faulkner, “The past isn’t really past at all.” We were able to capture a number of ways in which Americans interact with this story in the present day—a reenactment of Custer’s Last Stand, a ceremony to demonstrate the effects of colonization on Turtle Island. This is a story about enduring Lakota resistance and existence, but it’s also a conversation with the present. History repeats itself until we actually learn the history.”
(Mabel Pais writes on Social Issues, The Arts and Entertainment, Spirituality, Education, Cuisine, Health & Wellness, and Business)