Film tells story of those on the inside of Wounded Knee siege

By Jomay Steen, Journal Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 04, 2005

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RAPID CITY -- It was a story waiting to be told.

At the 30th anniversary of the 1973 siege at Wounded Knee, lawyer Charles Abourezk and Dr. Brett Lawlor, both of Rapid City, began four days of talking to the American Indian men and women who were part of its history.

In a mini-studio that the amateur filmmakers had set up at Wounded Knee District School in Manderson on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, they interviewed the people who lived through the 71-day siege.

On Tuesday, Abourezk, 51, talked about the film "A Tattoo on My Heart: The Warriors of Wounded Knee 1973" between appointments at his office.

"I've always been, as a journalist and an attorney, a storyteller. I felt compelled to get the story out there," he said.

The documentary will be one of the scores of films shown at the Native Voice Film Festival. The annual festival begins at 7 p.m. today showing a series of short studies, documentaries and feature-length films about American Indians.

The local filmmakers will present their film on the main floor at 9 p.m. Thursday at the Elks Theatre.

After a brief introduction by Abourezk and Lawlor, the film will fill the silver screen for the first time at the Rapid City. The men will answer questions from the audience after the movie, he said.

The two friends decided to collaborate on the project combining Lawlor's interest in script writing and Abourezk's journalism and documentary skills.

"We didn't think the story had ever been told by the people inside of the siege or from their perspective," Abourezk said.

The 30th anniversary was the perfect catalyst to start their first project.

Using their own money, they filmed 39 hours of interviews. For the next two years, the men, with the help of an editor in Seattle, cut the documentary to its 59-minute-feature length.

"They had powerful stories and so many moving sound bites. Editing the film down to an hour was difficult," Abourezk said.

Although it is Lawlor's and Abourezk's first-time at the Native Voice festival, they have had their documentary shown at several other film festivals.

The film premiered at the Wounded Knee District School in Manderson, was exhibited at the San Francisco American Indian Film Festival, where it sold out, and was shown at Palm Springs Native American Film Festival and ImageNation American Indian Film Festival in Vancouver, Canada. It also aired on South Dakota Public Television on Feb. 28.

"We just got selected for Montreal's First Nations Film Festival," Abourezk said.

As the lights dimmed and the story unfolded for the first time on the silver screen, pride flooded Abourezk.

"I kept thinking, ‘That's my movie,'" he said.

It is a feeling that he hopes those documented in the movie share. Since the film's completion, four of the people interviewed have died.

What has drawn audiences into the theaters to watch the program has been the universal stories of people living through events that changed their lives, he said.

"Like most heroic stories, we see ordinary people face their fears and become transformed in the process," Abourezk said.

For more information, go to Web sites for Native Voice Film Festival at www.elkstheatre.com or www.nativevoicefilmfestival.com.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com