deadCenter Film Festival kicks off this week, highlighting growing Indigenous representation in entertainment industry

Written By: Sarah Liese (Twilla)

Indigenous representation continues its momentum in the entertainment industry, and the 25th annual deadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City has a lineup of films to show for it.

(OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.) Joey Clift is a comedian and enrolled member of the Cowlitz Tribe, who has worked on popular shows, such as Molly of Denali, Spirit Rangers and Looney Tunes. Throughout his career, he has told stories he says are healing to his younger self, including his latest film, which will be screened at deadCenter this weekend, “Pow!”

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“As I was a kid, learning that maybe me being good at Mario Kart 64 isn't as important as the culture of my people,” Clift said in a Zoom interview. “And I think that for me, it's like learning that just being there is what counts.”

“Pow!” is an eight-minute comedic short about a Cowlitz and Cherokee boy who attends a powwow with his family. When his gaming device starts running low, he’s faced with a high-stakes task of finding an open power source at the bustling powwow.

A film with this kind of plotline is something Clift says he wishes he could have seen when he was growing up.

“Seeing this short about just like a young Native kid who loves video games and is trying to figure out where they kind of exist in their culture, would have meant so much to me,” Clift. “When I was growing up, the only Native representation that I saw in cartoons was like Native sports mascots or like stereotypical Old West Natives being shot at by Bugs Bunny in a cowboy hat.”

The entertainment industry has come a long way from stereotypical depictions to authentic shows being greenlit like Spirit Rangers, Molly of Denali, Rutherford Falls and Reservation Dogs. Clift remembered facing rejection when pitching Indigenous stories and is glad the industry is valuing Native storytelling more.

“Thanks to the Standing Rock water protectors making Native representation just a little bit more visible,” Clift said. “Since then, I think that non-Native people are generally a lot more aware that they don't know about Native stuff, but they should have Native representation in their shows.”

In “Pow!”, he took great care to ensure the jokes would be well-received, and also brought a lot of intentionality to the cultural details. For example, Morgan Thompson (Cherokee), the film’s character designer, suggested using ledger art — an art form predominantly practiced by Plains Natives that utilizes ledger paper. The short uses ledger art for scenes portraying historical aspects of Indigenous activism, including the American Indian Movement’s takeover of Alcatraz and the Standing Rock pipeline protests.

Clift said he also worked to ensure accuracy for the powwow dancers, scene-setting details and character attire.

“Pow!” screens at the Harkins Theaters in Bricktown on Saturday and Sunday at 3 p.m. It’s one of many Indigenous films being screened at the deadCenter Film Festival, which runs Jun. 11-15 in downtown OKC.

Here are some of the other Indigenous stories to look out for at deadCenter:

“Remaining Native” is a feature-length documentary that parallels the journeys of Ku Stevens (Yerington Paiute) and his great-grandfather, Frank Quinn, showing how far their feet can take them. Stevens is running toward his goal of becoming a collegiate athlete, while Quinn ran 50 miles across the desert to escape the oppression at the Stewart Indian Boarding School in Nevada.

“Tiger” is a 13-minute experimental documentary about Muscogee artist Dana Tiger and her efforts to revive her family’s business, the Tiger T-Shirt company. The short film won an award at the Sundance Film Festival.

“Drowned Land” is a feature-length documentary about the efforts to protect the Kiamichi River in southeast Oklahoma. The film chronicles the director’s journey about her own family’s connection to the land and water on the Choctaw reservation.

“The Great Cherokee Grandmother” is a comedic short centered on a well-known joke and point of frustration in the Indigenous community: the Cherokee Grandmother syndrome. The 9-minute short features a date between a Cherokee man and a Caucasian woman, and the sharp turn their interaction takes when the woman reveals the Cherokee Grandmother syndrome.

“Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds: Family, An Oral History Project” is a short experimental documentary that explores the Cheyenne and Arapaho artist’s thought process behind his work and the layered meanings he employs in his practice.

“Free Leonard Peltier” is a feature-length documentary about the life of an American Indian Movement activist and the push to seek justice and free him from incarceration, which lasted nearly 50 years.

“Legend of Fry-Roti: Rise of the Dough” is a nine-minute heart-warming comedy about a young woman’s biracial identity and a cultural showdown involving Navajo frybread and Bengali Roti.

“Thin Places” is an 17-minute film set in Oklahoma that brings a story of Indigenous sisters to the forefront and confronts heartbreak and grief following the death of Birdie, one of the sisters.

“Redbird (Totsu)” is another Okie short and tells the story of a Cherokee woman who tries to keep her family together by preventing her niece from being adopted by her non-Native grandparents.

The deadCenter Film Festival begins on Wednesday night and heads into the weekend, finishing off the festival with a Glitterati After Party to celebrate its 25th anniversary on Sunday night.

To view the entire festival schedule, visit the deadCenter Film Festival website.