Premiere Anniversary
IT’S BEEN A YEAR, PEOPLE!! As we come around to Warrior Women’s one year anniversary of our Hot Docs Premiere, we thought it was time to recap and look to the future. We have had an incredible year!! Over this past year, we have screened at film festivals, visited schools and communities, and held an honoring in Rapid City for the Native women activists who are the Warrior Women of South Dakota.
For us, the film is the beginning of a journey toward social change. As such the film is part of the overall Warrior Women Project which is an innovative collaboration of scholarship, media, and activism that seeks to provide a forum for the Warrior Women of the Red Power Movement and current Indigenous activists to tell their stories in their own words for the benefit of future generations.
In the months to come there will be many exciting projects and events happening. First, we will be expanding our film screenings into an Indigenous Communities tour. Additionally, we are in the process of creating more media to share the history of Indigenous women’s activism.
The film is based on a book written by co-director Beth Castle, which was created from more than 200 hours of oral history interviews. We want to expand this oral history collection and create a podcast to make the material more accessible. Ultimately, this podcast will be taken on the road so we can produce more episodes with the Warrior Women we meet at screenings and events.
Of course, young people are the reason behind everything we do. They are the future and as such we find it crucial to create a curriculum that centers decolonization while raising awareness about the issues pertinent to the film and to today’s world. As part of this curriculum, we are also in the process of designing seminars and workshops that can be brought to your community or school.
Lastly, we recognize the need to stay accountable at the community level. We partner with the Wasagiya Najin Grandmothers' Group in order to provide direct action support on the Cheyenne River Reservation under the guidance of Madonna Thunder Hawk. We will continue to aid in the support and expansion of their work. In order to create a more sustainable future, we are also collaborating with Indigenous leaders to build an Earthship which will be self-run “decolony” for future survival schools.
