Remarkable movie on Wounded Knee trauma
Scene from ‘Neither Wolf Nor Dog’ A remarkable independent film by a Scottish filmmaker is currently touring small Scottish cinemas, often beating Hollywood blockbusters when shown head-to-head at the same venue.
And anticipation is building in Perthshire ahead of it being shown in Aberfeldy’s Birks Cinema this Sunday, August 11 at 6pm.
When Aberdonian Steven Lewis Simpson’s movie about modern Native American life, ‘Neither Wolf Nor Dog’ opened in the US, the reviews were hugely endorsing. “The characters of this modest, crowdfunded feature are practically unforgettable. It’s immensely serious but no downer,” wrote Colin Covert of The Star Tribune.
Film-maker Lewis Simpson knew traditional film distributors would have “no idea” how to access the core audience for the film, so he opted to bypass them and started self-distributing through his Edinburgh production company, directly to cinemas.
The film started a special release tour of Scotland on May 26. It’s become one of the most widely available indie films in Scotland in some time. In some of the smaller venues it saw record attendances with people turned away. The story is adapted from the best-selling Native American novel by Kent Nerburn.
The plot follows a white author who gets sucked into the heart of contemporary Native American life in South Dakota by a Lakota tribe elder and his side-kick who want the world to know of their terrible hardship.
Writer Kent Nerburn travels across the Great Plains to Dan’s clapboard shack on a bleak and poverty stricken reservation. Then follows his trials and tribulations in writing up the old man’s unbelievable story, with a roadtrip into the badlands of Native American life.
Neither Wolf Nor Dog - shortened to NWND - stars Lakota elder Dave Bald Eagle, who really was 95-yearsold at the time of filming.
Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum has a key link in this story, as it was the repatriation of a sacred Ghost Shirt to the Lakota people that first brought filmaker Simpson out to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
“It is the morning of our first big day of filming for NWND,” he recalled. “We are at Wounded Knee: hallowed ground in Indian country as it is the site of the last and most notorious of the endless massacres of American Indian people. Dave Bald Eagle’s people were the ones massacred here in 1890. He was born only 29 years later.
“It is the most powerful spot on Earth for me and has been since I first ventured there following a sacred Ghost Shirt’s repatriation in 1999. It had been taken to Scotland as a trophy from the massacre.
“Next to me is another of our stars, Richard Ray Whitman. Though from Oklahoma, he was in Wounded Knee in 1973 as part of the American Indian Movements (AIM) stand against oppression. For 71 days 1500 US forces surrounded them: Armoured personnel carriers, air force jets, and up to half a million bullets fired in. Richard engaged in those firefights.”
Tickets from www.thebirkscinema.com