Native Voice Film Festival opens in Rapid City

By Mary Garrigan | Friday, October 27, 2006

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Journal Staff Writer

RAPID CITY -- A dark-eyed beauty who found herself in the Hollywood spotlight two years ago for her role as Pocohontas in “The New World” was praised Friday at the Native Voice Film Festival for focusing that spotlight on the issues facing the indigenous people of Peru instead.

Q’orianka Kilcher, the 16-year-old actress who played opposite Colin Farrell’s John Smith in the film version of the classic love story from American history, is in Rapid City this weekend for the annual film festival.

Festival organizer Lise King said Kilcher was a role model for others on how to take the media spotlight focused on her and use it to say “let’s take a look at something more important.”

She praised Kilcher for her work among tribal people in Peru who are suffering environmental damage to their lands. Kilcher recently testified at the United Nations about her experiences there. Kilcher is descended on her father’s side from the Huachipaeri and Quechua tribes of South America.

She was an unknown 14-year-old living in Santa Monica and singing for change on street corners when she won the coveted Pocohontas role, according to news reports. And when she turns her mega-watt smile and exotic beauty on the cameras, it’s easy to see why a casting director would take a chance on the inexperienced actress with the confusing first name (it is pronounced Core’-ee-anka). Kilcher has not appeared in another Hollywood production since “The New World,” but was recently offered a role in a modern adaptation of “Merchants of Venice.”

This weekend, she is using her fame and her vocal talents to promote native films, especially the work of filmmakers even younger than she is, as part of the Youth in Media Forum. The forum highlights the increasingly affordable and accessible technologies that allow anyone to become a filmmaker and share their stories.

Student filmmakers, such as 12-year-old Koleyna Kohler, who made the short film, “Look at that Columbus with the Big Butt,” are part of the Emerging Filmmaker series. King said the student films represent an “incredible pool of entries” to the festival this year.

Kilcher will be there tonight when “The New World” producer Sarah Green accepts the Building Bridges Through Media Award at the festival for her film. Directed by Terrence Malik (“Badlands,” “Thin Red Line”), the film and its producers won kudos from King and from actor Larry Pourier of Kyle, who also appeared in the film, for the respect it showed to the American Indian historical perspective and to the Indian actors on the set.

“I’ve worked on more than 20 films, and this one was the best by far,” Pourier said of “The New World.”

The award is given each year to a non-Indian made film that fosters interest in and understanding of native America, King said. Green and Kilcher will introduce a 5:30 p.m. screening of the film at the Elks today. It was released in 2005 and is now available on DVD.

King urged the community to take advantage of the festival as an opportunity to see a variety of thought-provoking smaller films by Indian and non-Indian filmmakers on a wide range of issues. King is thrilled that 30 of the 43 films being screened at the festival will have a filmmaker connected to it available to answer questions afterward.

“That’s what makes it a film festival instead of just another night at the movies,” she said.

For a festival schedule or ticket prices, contact the Elks Theater at 343-7888 or the festival headquarters at the Hotel Alex Johnson, 523 Sixth St., in downtown Rapid City.