OKLAHOMA CITY — A Kiowa filmmaker returned home to premiere his latest project, a movie that highlights Native American cultures and history in Oklahoma.
“Indian Girl” debuted June 11 at the 10th Annual deadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City.
The film’s director, Christopher McKenzie, is a Kiowa Tribal citizen from Mustang, Okla., and says that the film’s subject is deeply personal to him.
“At the center of the movie is the intersection of Native American and white cultures in the history of Oklahoma,” he said. “I’m a quarter-blooded Kiowa with strong family ties to the tribe, and I wanted to bring the blending represented in my own life to the screen.”
The film is historical fiction set during both the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 and during a present-day elementary school re-enactment of the event. The first segment centers around an encounter between a white settler and a Native American girl, while the second segment features another Native girl caught in the middle of a dispute between her parents and her school.
Though set in a fictional Oklahoma town, McKenzie explained he intended the film to highlight the history and culture of the state as a whole.
“Oklahoma is unique among states,” he said. “It has one of the largest percentage populations of Native Americans in the country, yet most of its tribes are not based on any kind of reservation. Most modern portrayals of Indians are set on reservations, and so there can be this misconception that all Indians live on reservations. And you’ll still run into the occasional naïve person who still thinks there might be teepees all over Oklahoma.”
But the truth, said McKenzie, is far more normal, and to him, far more interesting. “We all live in the same towns, the same neighborhoods, and many times go to the same schools and churches. Just thinking how Native Americans were treated 100 years ago, it’s remarkable how boringly normal life between whites and Indians can be today, and still how both cultures have had an impact on the other over the decades.”
He continued, “There are still tensions and conflicts, and the film tries to illustrate the contrast between the past and present, but at the same time show the challenges for the future.”
The film “Indian Girl,” McKenzie explained, tries to illustrate the evolution of that relationship from open hostility to peaceful, if sometimes uneasy, cohabitation. “This movie isn’t a happy story, necessarily – I’ve tried very hard not to sugarcoat some of the worse aspects of our past. But it is a hopeful story – one that highlights the progress we’ve made and the possibility of more progress in the future.”
For additional information about the movie, visit http://www.indiangirlmovie.com.