Turtle Island Productions

Corporate Video knock-off of the Bring the Heat podcast.

Interesting gig last night at the Computer History Museum, Steve Jobs In Exile, the NEXT Years.

Documentary Filmmaker Archive #7: Two documentaries for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Washington State: Producer/Director/D.P./Editor. 1. Pulling Together (2003), Gathering Together (2006).

Here's a fun little outtakes edit I did when I was the Creative Director with Naqmayam Communications. We we were contracted to do a media outreach campaign focusing on California and Pacific Northwest tribal communities for the 2010 US Census. Joely Proudfit (Luiseño) is the head of Naqmayam www.naqcom.com and the young folks in this video were volunteers helping us wrangle tribal chairman to participate in these PSA videos while attending the 2009 NCAA Annual Convention in Palm Springs. Serious work, but time for some fun too. https://tinyurl.com/pazd6mmj

2010 US Census Los Angeles Region PSA: “I am Indian, and I Count” Native American Crew Bloopers, 2009 I was the DP and Editor for a series of these PSAs as Creative Director for Naqmayam Communications (Joely Proudfit). With special appearances by Joely Proudfit and

Documentary Filmmaker Archive #6. "Waasa Inaabidaa: We Look In All Directions." A six-hour Ojibwe documentary series for PBS-8, WDSE, Duluth. Broadcast premiere November, 2002. I was the Associate Producer/Script Writer for Producer/Director Lorraine Norrgard. I also was the Director of Photography for two seasonal re-enactment shoots at the Waswagoning Ojibwe Village on the Lac Du Flambeau Chippewa Reservation in northern Wisconsin. Awarded Best Documentary Feature at the 2002 American Indian Film Festival, San Francisco. I received two Midwest Emmy Awards for episodes 4 and 6; "Bimaadizwin: A Healthy Way of Life" and "Ojibwemowin: Ojibwe Oral Tradition." Includes BTS photos from the autumn 2001 historical re-enactment production at the Waswagoning Traditional Ojibwe Village, owned and operated by Nick Hockings, located on the Lac Du Flambeau Chippewa Reservation in northern Wisconsin, 2001. https://turtle-island.com/waasa-inaabidaa-we-look-in-all-directions-episode-6-ojibwemowin-ojibwe-oral-tradition-2002/ https://turtle-island.com/waasa-inaabidaa-we-look-in-all-directions-episode-4-bimaadiziwin-a-healthy-way-of-life/

Documentary Filmmaker Archive #5: The making of "Alcatraz Is Not an Island" and related newspaper articles and photos, etc.

The world premiere of the original 70-minute version of the documentary was on Nov. 12, 1999, during the 24th Annual American Indian Film Festival at The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. The AIFF program incorrectly listed the documentary's running time as 85 minutes. The sold-out screening occurred shortly after the Oct. 23, 1999, Alcatraz Occupation 30th Anniversary Celebration on the island, which I co-produced with Millie Ketcheshawno (Muscogee) and a group of Native and non-Native Bay Area volunteers. This was not by chance. Millie and I were adamant that we complete some version of the film in time to premiere it as part of the 30th Anniversary of the occupation. During the screening, the packed audience laughed at the funny parts, hissed at the government officials on cue, cried during the tragic parts, and rose to their feet by the end in a thunderous standing ovation. It seemed to go by very quickly, and the only audible disruption during the screening was my six-year-old son getting bored while sitting on my lap. A few nights later we received the AIFF’s Best Documentary Feature award at the festival’s Gala Awards Ceremony. I will never forget how proud we all felt for all the work we had put in to reach that point. However, the film was not really completed, and we still had a lot of work ahead of us. Feel free to skip to the photos and archival material I have posted or read on if you want the detailed story behind the making of "Alcatraz Is Not an Island."

My mom had flown out to the Bay Area from Illinois and was with me in the audience during the awards night when our film was announced as Best Documentary Feature. Needless to say, she was a very proud mom that evening. Later she told me that she once had a dream of watching me speak in front of a large audience of people. Three of my partners on the film, Jon Plutte (Producer, Co-Writer), Millie Ketcheshawno (Executive Producer/Co-Writer), and Mike Yearling (Editor) joined me on stage to accept the award. Our other partner, Troy Johnson (Historian/Associate Producer) was unable to attend. I was very nervous and excited up on that stage in front of a couple hundred people, and when I spoke of my late father Walter, who died in 1963, whom my Ojibway lineage stems from, my emotions did get the better of me. I will never forget what my friend and mentor Millie said when we walked off the stage that night, “next we go to Sundance.”

Moments later, through my friend Carla Plante (Cree/Tsimshian First Nation), who provided the temporary narration for this first version of the film, we met Heather Rae, the Program Director for the Sundance Film Festival’s Native Forum program. She loved our film and surprisingly asked why we did not submit it to Sundance. We were a little gob smacked because we had sent in the application and tape before the submission deadline earlier that fall. Heather was more than a little embarrassed and admitted that our film and application never came across her desk. Later, she informed us there was a mix up of some sort with our entry, but that it was too late to squeeze us into the upcoming January 2000 festival program. However, she assured us that despite already premiering in San Francisco, she would make sure we had a slot at Sundance in 2001 if we wanted to wait that long. We spent the year 2000 attempting to secure completion funding to truly finish the film. One main objective was to pay for all the unlicensed music, photos, and privately owned archival film and video footage. The other main goal was to replace Carla Plante’s temporary narration. I wanted a stronger, recognizable Native voice and Millie knew just the right actor.

After a year of anxiously waiting and having only limited success in raising a very small amount of money, we were far short of our goal of securing the approximately $114,000 we budgeted to properly complete the film and return to the editing bay to rework the opening and cut it down to a PBS hour which is 57 minutes, including the credits. Up to this point, the film was entirely funded through begging, borrowing, and relying on volunteers and in-kind donations of gear and editing time. Recall that the film sprung out of the short Alcatraz Island NPS exhibit video “We Hold the Rock.” So, we sort of piggy-backed off that project, getting free access to the interviews we shot for it, as well as bypassing permit fees to shoot on the island and additional cost saving shortcuts. Additionally, I used my connections in the San Francisco Bay Area production community to secure broadcast quality cameras, dollies, lighting and sound gear all free of charge. Everyone I spoke to believed in this project and wanted to do what they could to help us. Long time local Director of Photogrpahy Wes Dorman offered free use of his sound stage where I shot additional interviews. Mine and Millie's connections also secured a revolving crew of experienced and intern volunteers for each additional shoot needed to expand the short exhibit video and complete the much longer, more detailed initial 70-minute version that became “Alcatraz Is Not an Island.” Spin Pictures' Producer Betsy Parker and Editor Mike Yearling had donated their Media 100 editing suite and Mike's time and skills to get us to the completion of the original 70-minute version that premiered that November 1999 evening at the Palace of Fine Arts. The Bay Area Video Coalition (BVAC) later provided their Media 100 editing suite where I continued to work with Mike Yearling editing the film down.

I insisted, and Millie agreed that we should prioritize Native Americans on the crew; experienced when possible, or as interns if just starting out their film-making careers. Additional crew volunteers included non-Natives Michael Emery, Ted Albalos, James Ronnie, Sal Gallagher, J.P. Morgan, James Dunn and Pratap Chatterjee. Native volunteers included Tina Rizzo (Southern Pueblo), David Rhodes (Ojibway), Melanie Motiska (Cherokee decent), Holly Ashworth (Cherokee decent), Curtis Tonemah (Kiowa/Comanche), Monique Sonoque (Chumash), Yvonne Yazzie (Navajo), Shaun Courtney-Deschene (Turtle Mtn. Chippewa), and Derek Jennings (Sac&Fox). Meanwhile, the autumn of 2000 was approaching fast, and we were eagerly anticipating news from Heather Rae at Sundance.

Finally, in late November 2000 we received news from Heather Rae that we were officially selected to screen our film in the upcoming 2001 Sundance Film Festival as part of the Native Forum program, which featured films by Canadian First Nations and Native American filmmakers. However, the bad news was that because our film had already premiered at the AIFF in 1999, our screening at Sundance was ineligible for competition. Fine by us. Our goal was to bring it to Sundance, generate as much publicity as possible while there, and use that as a further launching pad to finish raising the $114,000 we still needed to pave the way for a national broadcast on the PBS network of stations across the country and bring this important story to as many people as possible. That was always the goal.

As November turned to December we were finalizing our plans for the upcoming screening at Sundance. The festival would be using High-Definition video projection systems for the first time. Consequently, all "films" and videos had to be converted to the new HD format. Jon and I had to scramble, and we ended up using Roland House in Virginia who agreed to do the transfer for the cost of the master HD tape stock and waived the fee for the actual conversion in exchange for a credit in our promotional material.

Meanwhile, Millie had returned to her second home in Shawnee, OK and was preparing for our Sundance screening from there. I remember the last time I talked to her by phone. We reminisced about the journey we had been on since meeting for the first time on Alcatraz in October 1996, and all the things we had accomplished since then. The "We Hold the Rock" exhibit video, the accompanying powwow on the island in 1997, the Alcatraz Occupation 30th Anniversary fundraiser with Peter Coyote, Rita and Priscilla Coolidge, and the artwork donated by Leonard Peltier for the silent auction. And who can forget when Adam Fortunate Eagle showed up at the last minute, creating quite a stir as only Adam could, to auction off one of his beautiful handmade pipestone pipes. We both had stories to share from our time producing the Alcatraz Occupation 30th Anniversary on the island in late Oct 1999. After the lengthy conversation we ended both saying at the same time, "see you soon in Park City." Sadly, it was not meant to be.

In early December 2001 I received a phone call from Millie's daughter Leslie, who lived in Oklahoma. I had first met her at the powwow on the island in 1997, and then again when we stayed at her house during our production trip to Oklahoma when we filmed key interviews with Alcatraz veterans Al Miller (Seminole), Jim Thorpe's daughter Grace Thorpe and her daughter Dagmar (Sac & Fox), Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller, and Don Patterson (Comanche). Leslie had shocking news, Millie had fallen in her kitchen in Shawnee, OK and suffered a severe head injury and was in intensive care at University Hospital in Oklahoma City. Her condition was very serious, and she would undergo surgery as soon as possible. I was in shock when I got off the phone. I prayed for her the Indian way and kept a bundle of sage smoldering until it was all ash at the bottom of an abalone shell. Shortly afterward, on December 12, 2001, I got a call from Leslie again and she delivered the tragic news that her mom had passed away during the surgery the day before. Later, I talked to Millie's son Gino who lived across the bay in Albany, CA and he provided me with more details about her injury and death.

Millie's obituary read in part: "Millie Ketcheshawno was born February 9, 1937, in the Shell Creek Community. She died on December 11, 2000, at University Hospital in Oklahoma City. Wake services were held December 14 at Gregg Funeral Home Chapel followed by funeral services December 15 at the Missionary Baptist Church. Officiating the service were Rev. Ledtkey McIntosh and Rev. Allison Phillips. Interment was at Greenwood Cemetery. She was educated at Carter Seminary elementary school and Haskell Institute high school in Lawrence, KS. She had resided in northern California since the late 1950s and eventually became involved in film making and movie production. She produced the documentary film “Alcatraz Is Not an Island” shortly before her death. She was the daughter of Daniel and Amand Hill PHILLIPS and a member of Artussee Baptist Church in Eufaula."

After Millie's participation on the Bay Area Native American Council in the early-mid 1960s she went through a life-changing transformation while being an active member of the Alcatraz Occupation and member of the group coordinating the 19-month occupation called "Indians of All Tribes." After the occupation ended in June 1971, she became the first woman president of the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland. In 1990 she enrolled for a Bachelor of Arts degree in American Indian Studies and the film program at U.C. Berkeley, where she graduated with honors in 1995. Through her activism, she facilitated the counteraction of Columbus Day with the creation of Indigenous People's Day in Berkeley, which is celebrated across the United States today. In addition, Millie was then driving force behind establishing the U.C. Berkeley pow-wow in the 1990s which is still held every year.

I wanted to attend Millie's services in Oklahoma on Dec 14, but there was no way I could afford a plane ticket at such a short notice. I called Jon, Troy, Mike and Heather Rae and I explained to them what happened. There was talk of pulling the film from Sundance out of respect for Millie so soon after her tragic and sudden death. I spoke to Leslie and Gino about this, and they were adamant and said not to cancel the screening. Millie's goal was always to bring the story to Sundance and from there to the largest audiences possible. Canceling the Sundance screening would stop us in our tracks and deal a severe blow to Millie's wishes. In short, her children and I believed Millie would want us to continue without her. Once again, I remembered Millie telling me, "Oh Jim, don't you know everything happens for a reason."

With Millie in our hearts and thoughts, we moved forward with our Sundance Film Festival plans and in January 2001 we presented the 70-minute version of "Alcatraz Is Not an Island" to a sold-out audience. Due to high demand, two additional festival screenings were added as well as additional press screenings. My partners on the film, Jon Plutte (Producer, Co-Writer), Mike Yearling (Editor) and I attended the Sundance Film Festival screenings and associated events with our wives. The premier Sundance screening was dedicated to Millie, and her fellow filmmaker and friend Larry Cesspooch (Ute) provided the opening ceremony and prayer. Due to the solemnity of the opening ceremony, there were no photographers allowed to document the event. In hindsight, it all happened very quickly, and my memory is a bit foggy, but I recall some of the key Alcatraz Veterans were in attendance; John Trudell, LaNada Means (Boyer-Warjack), Robert Free, and Adam Fortunate Eagle, along with Millie's children and family members. During the festival, the Sundance Native Forum Director, Heather Rae, arranged for a special promotional event with one of the occupation and film's major personalities, John Trudell (Santee Sioux). I attended the event with my wife and recall meeting some of the most popular Canadian First Nation actors at the time, Jennifer Podemski, and Ryan Black among them as well as legendary Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin.

Unfortunately, it became clear very quickly that the event was more about promoting John Truell than our film. We attended an after party at a hotel nearby where many of the First Nation and Native American actors and filmmakers were staying including Heather and her underling Bird Runningwater, who would eventually replace Heather as director of the Native Forum. Sadly, that was even a worse experience. The blatantly racist remarks directed at my very pale, blonde, blue-eyed wife exposed the ugly side of the Native American film community. The excessive drinking did not impress us either, so we left after just enough time there to feel very unwelcome. To this day I cannot forget watching Bird Runningwater, Heather Rae Bybee and Alanis Obomsawin smugly mocking my wife and myself in between chugs on their beer bottles. I had held Alanis in very high regard, and her work inspired me to become a documentary filmmaker and focus on our Anishinaabeg stories and Native American issues and stories in general. It was a devastating blow to realize perhaps I did not belong in that world. Physically I did not fit in regardless of my very real Ojibway First Nation family connection stemming from my father's mother and her Ojibway relatives on the Ojibways of the Pic River Reserve (now called Biigtigong Nishnaabeg First Nation). Because my father died young and was never an enrolled band member, I would have to settle for being a member of the Ontario Métis Association and self-identified as a Métis-Ojibway. In 2017, after years of gathering documents and submitting applications and appeals I finally received my Canadian Federal Government issued legal "Status Indian Card" and became a Biigtigong Nishnaabeg (Pic River Reserve) band member joining my many aunts and uncles who were already band members at Pic River.

Was it a coincidence that Heather Rae embarked on her own documentary about John Trudell shortly after that which premiered at the AIFF in 2005? At the time Heather Rae was claiming to be of Cherokee descent, but she was not an enrolled member of any of the three Federally recognized Cherokee Nations. Her career in the Native American film making space as a producer in Hollywood took off after her association with the Sundance Film Festival and her Trudell documentary. However, in 2023, deep research into her claims of being Cherokee discovered that after a detailed study of her family genealogy, she had zero Cherokee ancestors, nor any Native American ancestors from any tribe, federally recognized or not. She was exposed as a fraud, commonly known today as a "Pretendian". Looking back, I find it ironic that she was part of a small group of high-profile Native filmmakers questioning my "Indian bona fides" when she herself was at the time masquerading as something she was not and later exposed as a fraud. Karma has a way of coming back to bite people in Indian country making claims that are not supported by facts. Sadly, to this day there are Native people still defending and supporting her and she is still active in the Indian film making world. Sycophants will cling to their idolatry even when facts expose the truth.

While I was at the Sundance Film Festival, I attended a workshop presented by Patrick Wickham, then the Director of Production at Independent Television Services (ITVS), based in San Francisco. ITVS is one of the "minority" consortia of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and is an invaluable resource for independent filmmakers seeking funding at any stage of their project. It was through this contact that we eventually received a funding agreement that enabled us to edit the 70-minute version down to 57 minutes, pay for all the music, photos, and privately owned archival film footage licensing and record new narration for the beginning of the film. Millie's son Gino assisted us in contacting the actor who Millie envisioned for the final voice over narration, Benjamin Bratt, and he agreed to do it. I think we had to pay him a SAG required minimum fee, which I recall he donated to the American Indian Center in San Francisco's Mission District, but my memory is fuzzy on that point. Millie had been close friends with Benjamin's and Peter Bratt's mother during the Alcatraz occupation. Their mother, Eldy Bratt, was an indigenous Quechua Peruvian activist who participated in the 19-month occupation of Alcatraz. She moved her five children, including young Benjamin and Peter, to the island to take part in the protest for Indigenous rights,.

We arranged to record the new narration at the PBS KQED studio in San Francisco. Ben and Peter both arrived for the session and had already viewed the 70-minute version of the film. As we were introduced and discussing the film the brothers pointed out that there is a clip of archival black and white 16mmm footage already in the film that shows Peter as a young boy with long hair running in slow motion through an open field on the island. That clip is still in the shorter 57-minute PBS version of the film. After we were finished with the recording session, the Bratt brothers departed and shortly after that Jon and I made our way out of the building and ran into none other than Ken Burns. It was a surreal moment, and we casually said "hi Ken" as if we knew him.

Over the next few months, I worked with our editor Mike Yearling of Spin Pictures on reworking the opening and restructuring some of the film's narrative to shorten it to the required running time of 57 minutes. Although the writing credit was shared amongst me, Jon, and Millie, most of the creative ideas were mine. I was adamant about including the Lakota prophecy at the beginning of the film as well as the poetry voice over readings. The poetry was written by occupiers of Alcatraz during the occupation. I was responsible for persuading the Ojibway recording artist Waquay, whom I previously met at the American Indian Film Festival, to volunteer her time while in San Francisco to record her reading of the poems.

Choosing what to take out of the long version of the film was very difficult to make, but it had to be done. Jon had a full time job still at the Golden Gate Parks Association but filled in for me with Mike when I had to go out of town for a week on another project. Jon was also busy wrapping up all the loose ends regarding licensing the many archival and privately owned still photos, 16mm and video footage, and the music, which turned out to be a nightmare. Spin Picture's owner and producer Betsy Parker provided sound advice after watching some of the first re-edits of sections of the film. Eventually we just ran out of time and money and ITVS wanted to see a fine cut of the new version. After receiving their feedback we made a few more changes, nothing drastic, and we moved closer to picture lock. ITVS then paved the way for our local PBS station, KQED, to be the national PBS broadcast "presenting station" and through that agreement KQED provided the online editing suite and an editor to work with Jon and myself to put on the final technical touches, the final audio mix, and final color correction, credits and other CPB/PBS technical requirements prior to the national PBS broadcast premier which was slated for November, 2002. ITVS provided a national promotional campaign leading up to the PBS broadcast premiere. Our PBS station carriage reports were through the roof with nearly 100% of all PBS stations in the US scheduling the film for the month of November 2002 or shortly thereafter.

Immediately after the PBS premiere I embarked on an outreach campaign supported by ITVS and KQED. Stanford University student Shaun Courtney-Deshene (Turtle Mtn. Chippewa) volunteered to help me coordinate the campaign with scheduled preview and post broadcast community engagement screenings at select universities and in any tribal community that requested one. With a limited budget, I visited mostly universities with American Indian Studies departments where I screened the film and led the Q&A sessions that followed. I always insisted on bringing up to the stage with me a Native person with some connection to the occupation. Sometimes I was joined by an occupation veteran or their son or daughter who happened to live in whichever city I was screening the film in, such as Phoenix when I screened the film at ASU, or at Stanford, SFSU, and UC Berkeley when I screened at those universities right here in the Bay Area, the epicenter of the occupation itself. Looking back some 26 years, sometimes it seems like a dream. Today, the film is still used in university, Jr college, and tribal schools across the country and even in Canada, my home country, to teach about the American Indian Red Power movement that it sparked in 1969. I still ask myself; did I really do all that and meet all those people? Despite all the ups and downs since then, or maybe because of them, I still remember what Millie told me, "Jim, don't you know by now that everything happens for a reason."

Documentary Filmmaker Archive #4: Film Festivals & Conferences, and Events Participant Passes & Badges and some MISC items. I'm pretty sure when I'm gone my son will likely throw out most of this stuff I've been collecting for the past 36 years. So I've scanned it all and posted it here so that once I'm gone it will live on Facebook as long as there is still an Internet. In chronological order starting from 1990.

My friend John Loftus, who used to be the editor of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe's monthly newspaper and responsible for recommending the tribal council hire me to make Pulling Together in 2003 and the sequel Gathering Together in 2006 just just sent me this photo from 2003 when I was shooting/making Pulling Together. He found it while searching through an old hard drive. I had never seen this one before. That's me filming the MIT Canoe Family at dawn as they departed perhaps either at Makah or Clallam Bay en route to the Tribal Canoe Journeys' final destination hosted by the Tulalip Tribes (Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Skykomish) near Marysville, WA north of Seattle. Love this photo. John is a talented photojournalist and writer. I'll be posting more from these two documentary productions and completed films here soon.

From the T.I.P. Archives: Foothill College radio station KFJC (which I attended from fall of 1983-1985) interviewed me in Nov. 1999 just prior to the American Indian Film Festival (San Francisco) world premiere of my first documentary "Alcatraz Is Not An Island." I was going to just post the audio interview, but me being me, I had to take on the task of putting it to images. So now, several weeks later, I've completed it. The interview was conducted by KFJC D.J. personality "Maybellene" (Liz Clark, now the KFJC Promotions Director), who just so happened to be the sister-in-law of my childhood Wheaton, IL friend Mark Anderson.

Documentary Filmmaker Archive #3: Co-Producer of the Alcatraz Occupation 30th Anniversary Celebration, October 1999.