“Filming the West”

The symposium focuses on  filmmaking about the American Indian experience in Wyoming. Stories featured are about tribes that have historic connections to the Encampment area. The program opens Friday night Aug. 16 with the locally created “Treasure of Hidden Valley,” which was developed by local filmmakers for the Bicentennial of America in 1976. The film has not been shown for decades.  The second part of the evening is a showing of “The Battle of Red Buttes” – about the 1865 battle that was a direct result of the massacre of Arapaho and Cheyenne people at Sand Creek. On Aug. 17 the program begins with Steve Peck discussing “Wyoming Chronicles.” At the Saturday afternoon program the contemporary issue of Missing Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) is the subject of the film “Who She Is” made by Sophie Barksdale and Jordan Dresser for Caldera Productions. This issue is of paramount importance in Indian country and has been finally receiving wider recognition nationwide. A final film is “Arapaho Covered Wagon Redux” a film originally produced in 1923, but now featuring new interpretation by Alan O’Hashi including new music recorded by the Northern Arapaho Eagle Society.