The Creators of 'Murder in Big Horn' Talk The Importance of Representation, The Disappearances Of Native American Women In America & More | Sundance 2023 - video Dailymotion

Lucy Simpson, Luella Brien, Razelle Benally, and Matthew Galkin discussed their film ‘Murder In Big Horn’ at Sundance 2023.

Transcript

00:00Matthew, you know, upon realizing that this was an issue that he couldn't himself do as,

00:07you know, a white man, he sought out to bring Native people, Native producers,

00:14another director on to help bring these stories to light.

00:19Murder in Bighorn is a documentary series that examines the disappearances and potential murders

00:31of a handful of Native American women in rural Montana. And it also looks at the lack of law

00:39enforcement response to these cases. And ultimately in the series, we get into the sort of historical

00:45context of how Native American women, not just in this area, but all over North America have become

00:53so vulnerable. Bighorn County, Montana is a really dangerous place to live as a Native woman and

00:58especially as a Native girl. And growing up in that area, I understand the dangers of living there.

01:05And when I was approached by Matthew and Rizal, I was just giving background information. And so

01:13slowly as my role grew, so did my voice. And their goals were really to tell an honest story. And

01:24as cases popped up, we really got a lot of calls from different outlets.

01:31We had been hounding local law enforcement for, since we began this project, it was almost two years ago,

01:37for any kind of transparency on what they had done investigative wise on these cases. And they were just,

01:45we were pretty much stonewalled from the beginning.

01:48Unfortunately, there's a lot of tragedy that occurs on a daily basis, not only in Bighorn County,

01:54but in all reservations and communities across the United States. So for me, being on this,

02:01being a director on this series, it was difficult because not only during like the research process,

02:09but during actual filming in my own community, in my own family, there were cases of relatives going missing.

02:19I think for me, what was so made me want to be a part of this was the fact that they had,

02:27well, it was Ivan and Ivy McDonald, the two native producers reached out to me. And the fact that

02:33they were native working on this issue, had a native director, representation matters.

02:40In order for change to happen, people need to understand the issue. And so all we can do with,

02:49at this point, as filmmakers, as journalists, as people that work in advocacy, all we can do is

02:57help spread awareness, shine light, illuminate the issue, the problem. And I think we all have high hopes

03:07as to what could come of this series. And, you know, we hope that people can feel something when they

03:16watch, when they watch, when they watch what, what we've done. We want those cases solved. We want our,

03:24the perpetrators convicted. And we, if possible, we want our girls back. We want our women back.