KU professor producing films documenting Indigenous work to reclaim traditions
LAWRENCE — When Indigenous characters appear in film, they tend to be in stories of the past, showing a way of life that used to be. A University of Kansas professor is producing a pair of films documenting work of Native peoples to strengthen their communities, reclaim their traditions and move into the future. And the efforts are undertaken in memory of a friend who devoted her career to increasing Native representation and participation in Hollywood.
Rebekka Schlichting, assistant professor of the practice in journalism & mass communications at KU, is working in producer roles for “Walking in the Footsteps of Our Ancestors” and “Bring Them Home,” both documentaries about modern efforts by tribes to reclaim ceremonial homelands and reintroduce buffalo to the American Plains, respectively.
"Walking in the Footsteps of Our Ancestors"
A member of the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, Schlichting is executive producer of the film “Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors.” The documentary, currently in production, is chronicling the work of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe to reclaim original homelands. Tribal elders and members of all ages are working together to meet with landowners in southeast Nebraska to find lands that are for sale and purchase them for the tribe to reestablish ceremonial spaces in the lands they called home for centuries.
“Their home was the Lincoln, Nebraska, area, and they were moved to Oklahoma,” Schlichting said of the Otoe-Missouria. “There have been efforts in the past decade to reclaim spaces, not just land, but ceremonial spaces where the tribe can reconnect to their past and honor their traditions. We’re documenting the stories of the ones making the trip from Oklahoma to Nebraska to make sure things are done right and the guidance and collaboration that is part of that.”
While the film is in production with a goal of release and screenings on the festival circuit in 2027, Schlichting said they are not waiting until then to raise awareness of the Otoe’s efforts. A group of leaders, educators and community members is working with the Otoe-Missouria to welcome them home. The collective started a project called Walking In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors and is holding art exhibitions featuring work by Otoe and other tribal artists across the region to help build awareness of the ongoing efforts.
As part of the project, the Wachiska Audubon Society continues to find and reclaim land, and clips of the film are also being shown to make people aware of the efforts, including a segment featuring Lená Black, an Otoe-Missouria tribal member returning to her native homeland featured at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln football home game against Illinois.
“So much of our art and representation on film places us in the past,” Schlichting said. “So, we wanted to focus on modern art and the people who are working to say, ‘We were here, but we are still here and we still exist.’ I think there are many goals for this work, but in some ways we are establishing relationships, especially with local and state governments to also remind them we were here and establish future connections with ancestral homelands for future generations.”
"Bring Them Home"
Schlichting is also serving as an impact producer for the documentary “Bring Them Home.” The film tells the story of efforts by the Blackfoot Tribe to return buffalo to the Great Plains and to areas including Yellowstone National Park. In the 19th century, buffalo were hunted to near extinction. A vital source of food, tools and materials for numerous tribes, buffalo were wiped out as part of the official campaign to move Indigenous populations to reservations.
“Bring Them Home” documents the work of the Blackfoot Tribe to increase the populations of buffalo, efforts to first increase numbers of the animals in places like Yellowstone National Park, as well as boosting populations raised not only on farms, but to return to their native migratory patterns in various areas in the United States. Lily Gladstone, Academy Award nominee for her role in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” is narrator and executive producer of the film, telling the story of the setbacks, successes and future work to bring buffalo populations home.
As an impact producer, Schlichting is working to secure screenings of the film, which is currently making its way through the festival circuit, and to encourage community engagement with the movie as well. One such screening was held in September at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence and included a buffalo harvest, in which the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes hosted and demonstrated traditional methods of harvesting.
Deer Woman Productions
While working on documentary projects, Schlichting also has an eye on a very different type of film: a creature feature. She and her business partner Candice Dalsing recently founded Deer Woman Productions, a film production company in honor of her late friend Payton Canku. Canku was a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts when she died unexpectedly at age 30, just three months shy of receiving her master’s degree.
Canku’s passion was increasing the number of Native individuals working in film through paid internships in film productions with the ultimate goal of boosting both Native participation in and representation in Hollywood. After Canku’s death, Schlichting and mutual friend Dalsing, who works in film in Los Angeles, decided to found Deer Woman Productions. The company takes its name from the Indigenous legend of the Deer Woman, a story of a beautiful woman who appears at powwows. While few notice anything suspect about the woman, some are clued in that she is actually a deer by her hooves that appear beneath her ceremonial dress. Those who do not notice tend to be men who have done wrong, who are subsequently lured by Deer Woman’s beauty to their death in the nearby woods.
The dark themes of the legend are fitting, as Canku’s master’s thesis was a screenplay for a movie titled “Rez Monster.” Schlichting describes the movie as a “creature feature,” or horror film that deals with themes of Native children being stolen from their homes, forced into boarding schools, missing tribal members who are never accounted for and other forms of historical trauma that are very real for many Indigenous peoples.
“’Rez Monster’ is our dream production. We’re hoping to get funding and get it produced in the next few years,” Schlichting said.
Whether documentary or drama, increasing Native representation on film can go a long way toward addressing wounds of the past and showing the world ways that people are looking toward the future.
“We want this to be an example of reconciliation,” Schlichting said of the projects. “There is a lot of guilt over what happened, and this can be one way of fostering compassion for Native people and healing historical trauma.”