Cherokee Museum film festival celebrates 'Reservation Dogs' and self-representation

The Museum of the Cherokee Indian is hosting a mini-film festival as the organization continues to expand community programming.

The festival features Reservation Dogs co-creator and director Sterlinh Harjo. The FX series tells the relatable story of a group of kids coming-of-age in a small town. But for many Native Americans the Golden Globe-nominated show was one of the first times that they were able to see themselves on screen.

“I know like with myself growing up, I didn’t really have any representation in film or television," said Cherokee Museum Education Director Dakota Brown. "I didn’t see myself in any of the things that I watched on TV growing up.”

Brown is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee. She says the series marks a turning point for more film and television to be made by Indigenous people.

“It plays into how we see ourselves and also how the world sees us. And in the United States especially with non-native people they see native people in a very particular way and most of those ideas are based on stereotypes,” said Brown.

After Harjo agreed to take part in an event at the museum, Brown says the team quickly realized that this would need to be bigger than just a lecture.

“That’s what the film event is for me, it’s an opportunity for our community to see themselves represented,” said Brown.

In 2021, the Museum launched a virtual cultural lecture series to serve the community of the Qualla Boundary.

This mini-film festival will be their biggest event yet. The Way We See the World: Exploring Indigenous Representation in Film will feature screenings of six documentary and narrative short films from Native writers, directors, and producers along with a panel discussion and an art market.

The Museum is providing free tickets to enrolled tribal members to the event, which takes place Friday July 22^nd from 5pm until 10pm.. There were 143 tickets given away, according to the museum.

“Ensuring that they had access to this event was really important for us,” said Brown.

Courtesy of Museum of Cherokee

Brown saids that Aniyvwiyahi
community Program Coordinator Jenn Wilson has been a leader on this project and manages the lecture series.

The event will take place at the Mountainside Theatre -
home of Unto These Hills – on the Qualla Boundary. The panel will feature Sterlin Harjo (Seminole Nation, executive producer/showrunner of the Golden Globe-nominated FX series Reservation Dogs), Brit Hensel (Cherokee Nation, director of the Sundance-selected short “ᎤᏕᏲᏅ [What They’ve Been Taught]”), Keli Gonzales (Cherokee Nation, associate producer of “ᎤᏕᏲᏅ [What They’ve Been Taught]”), Anthony Sneed (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, writer/director/producer of the short films “SWIPE” and “STRIPPER”), and Peshawn Bread (Comanche Nation, writer/director, “The Daily Life of Mistress Red”).

Last year, Shana Bushyhead Condill, the new museum director and a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee told BPR that she wanted to look beyond the visitors of the museum.

Brown says that this film festival is proof of that mission.

“We’re kind of in the beginning stages of rethinking some of the things at the museum and also building on those who have come before us. I think we are kind of entering in – as you do when you get new leadership – into kind of new phases for our museum,” said Brown.

Part of those new phase is a new archival facility that Tribal Council recently approved to be built at the Kituwah Mound site.