MHA Collaborative Film Project is happy to share another film produced by one of our workshop facilitators, Justin Deegan. The film is titled, "Discipulus - The Apprentice." It is "a documentary about the archaeological excavation of the Mandan Village site called, "Chief's Lookings Village," in Bismarck, North Dakota. This project was shot in the summer of 2016.
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Although our workshops ended in August, MHACollaborativeFilm workshop facilitators and participants have continued working on short films. See below for some examples!
Mandaree workshop participant Amber Gwin has been working on videos about her home and her work with the Boys and Girls Club. She posts the Mandaree Boys and Girls Club videos at their Facebook Page here. In "Let's Go for a Ride," published on YouTube in February of 2017, Amber "was going for a silent film type of vibe but other than that this film is pretty self-explanatory."
Workshop facilitator Elijah Benson has been creating short educational videos for the Nueta Language Initiative in Twin Buttes. This initiative is aimed at revitalizing the Nueta or Mandan language through research, training young people, and engaging community members. Elijah's videos are distributed at their Facebook Page here and at their Vimeo website here.
Elijah has also produced a film, featured on our project's vimeo page here, about, in his own words, "A look into a young mans journey, to find out more about his past." It features his visit to the Minnesota Historical Society collections and its archives.
This is just a brief note to let everyone know that we have been delighted to see how much interest there is in continuing video workshops in the MHA Nation. So, we have made our teaching materials available to you via a google drive folder. Powerpoint presentation, teaching manual, and worksheets and handouts are all available for you to edit, use, and re-purpose as needed.
We hope to return and conduct more workshops, but in the meantime don't let that stop you from taking them on yourselves! Justin Deegan (Stanton), Elijah Benson (Twin Buttes), and Hilary Abe (Minneapolis) are all tribal members who have facilitated the workshops and live nearby. And if there are others in the community who know filmmaking and would like to lead a workshop - we hope these materials will help. We certainly had a wonderful time and hope more of you get to share in the experience of filmmaking and storytelling and sharing your own point of view. You can find a link to the teaching materials at our project website contact page or access them directly from Google Drive here. Our final scheduled workshop for the summer completed with a fun project in White Shield with two cousins - 9 year old Cianna Roszelle and 12 year old Khloe Cavanaugh. The film, "Cianna's Good Message," was directed by Cianna and includes a song by her and her cousin.
When we were brainstorming what idea they would like to develop for their film, Cianna mentioned she likes to draw, and that sparked the idea for the film which includes her drawing her three favorite things. She added a "message" she wanted to convey in a drawing: stay healthy. One of the things she loves is fancy dancing like a butterfly. She did not have access to her shawl at the time. She glanced around the classroom and noticed a blanket hanging over the window -- she said, I can use that! So that sparked the idea for the second half of the film. At the end of our shoot the first day, we asked if there was anything else she'd like to share with a broader audience, and Cianna added a message about being yourself, and thinking for yourself, and doing things that matter to you. Each workshop has been wonderful for all the people we have met, and all that we have learned from each other. It is rare to have the opportunity to spend so much time with people - we thank all the participants for choosing to spend their time with us in the workshops and for sharing their films. While our scheduled workshops for the summer have ended, please do contact us if you are interested in hosting a workshop in the future. Our workshop facilitators, local and in Colorado, are more than happy to do this again -- it was a wonderful experience! Our contact information is here. This past week was exciting! It was down to the wire, folks still working just before the Friday night screening -- but they all finished in time to share their films with family and friends. In these films, Terri Gachupin and her family shows three generations highlighting the importance of the Hidatsa language to them, Joletta Bird Bear introduces the environmental organization she is a part of, Amber Gwin presents community members reminiscing at St. Anthony's Church in Mandaree, and Russell Bird Bear and Sophia Hammons provide two different films inspired by Russell's focus on the importance of recycling. It was a great week! We had a great week out in Twin Buttes and showed the final films in the gym auditorium on Friday -- big screen, big sound, and popcorn! Adult workshop participants included Sierra Spotted Bear, Jessica White Plume, Amber Brim, Wind Spirit Spotted Bear, and Danelle Fox. Youth participants included Cayden Raines, Gabe Bell, Sydney Diaz Corral, and Faith Hataway. It was a pleasure working with all of them, and seeing their ideas materialize into great films. You can find them at our Vimeo page, and also at this website.
Thanks to Sierra Abe, Elijah Benson, and Principal Starr for bringing together our workshop and the Boys and Girls Club in the beautiful Twin Buttes elementary school building. The gym was a great place not only for the final screening, but also for taking breaks with the kids to shoot hoops and have dance parties! Mandaree is next week... please register here. Local filmmaker and photographer Justin Deegan (MHA Nation) was pulling double duty during the workshop -- not only was he teaching and mentoring, he was also documenting the workshop progress to share with the wider community. To do so, he was sharing images and videos during the New Town workshop at Instagram and Snapchat.
We really enjoyed spending time with the workshop participants this week! Ira Jones (who works at KMHA Radio), Bernie Young Bird (who specializes in language learning at the Native Studies program at the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College), Tom Abe (who teaches environmental sciences at the NHSC), and Pansy Goodall (who works at NHSC) created some wonderful short films. We had a wonderful time working with them, and really love their final films! You can find them at our Vimeo page, and also at this website. Thanks to our first group of filmmakers for great company and conversations, and for helping us develop our first workshop. With their input and success, we look forward to the next workshops in Twin Buttes, Mandaree, and White Shield! Twin Buttes is next, where we will be partnering with the Boys and Girls Club for the workshop. Adults are welcome,too -- please register here.
NEW TOWN Workshop
Monday July 11 to Friday July 15 9am-4pm - meet in NHSC Room 44 / 47. If you are planning to attend the workshop, it will take place at the Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, in rooms 44 and 47. When you enter the building go right, the classrooms are down that hall. Please bring a pen or pencil - besides that, we have everything you'll need. For lunch, we will have fixings to make sandwiches, along with sides and fruit. See you soon! If you have any questions or concerns, or have trouble finding our group, please contact Jen at 303-919-5022.
We recently uploaded a video to the MHA Collaborative Film project website that was filmed in a couple hours on June 15, 2016 at Chief Looking's Village in Bismarck, ND where Mark Mitchell and his crew of archaeologists have been working for two summers.
Atty Phleger shot the video during our two hour visit to the site with Calvin Grinnell and he edited the video in about four hours (this is for all our future video workshop participants to know -- it's possible to make a film in five days!). The site is a Mandan village from the late 1500s that was occupied for about 30 to 40 years, Mark explained. It is high on a bluff that overlooks the Missouri River. Many thanks to Calvin and Mark and his team for showing us around! Elijah and Justin were also filming at the site, spending a week with the archaeologists to get a longer, fuller story of the excavation. For instance, not included in the short film below is the description of extensive underground mapping the archaeologists did before they dug any pits for excavation -- they used ground penetrating radar, LiDAR, and other technologies to decide where to dig. You can find a Bismarck Tribune article about the go ahead to do the dig here, a 2015 news article here, and a more recent article here. Welcome to our project website! This website is a work in progress -- it has more information about the video workshops, including who will be teaching them and in the near future it will include a list of dates and locations where they will take place. Any announcements we post at the project website will also post at the project's Facebook page. Workshops will begin in early July -- we will share the details with you as soon as we can. Until then, feel free to explore the website and learn more.
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