FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Emmy winning filmmakers to produce American Indian Movement documentary.
Never Ignored: The Story of AIM, the American Indian Movement
(Working Title)
March 26, 2007.
Documentary filmmakers Jay Rosenstein and James M. Fortier recently launched a new
documentary project chronicling the controversial history of the American Indian
Movement. Drawing on their experience and success with previous national PBS
programs In Whose Honor (Rosenstein) and Alcatraz Is Not An Island (Fortier), the
Emmy Award winning filmmakers will Co-Write, Co-Produce, and Co-Direct the new
project. Set against the backdrop of the “Red Power” movement, Never Ignored: The
Story of AIM, the American Indian Movement will explore the roots of the group’s
formation, the early years in Minneapolis, their rise on the national political protest scene,
the tumultuous period of the early 1970s, and the systematic campaign of the U.S.
Government and the FBI to “neutralize” AIM leaders and suppress the red power
movement. The 60-90 minute documentary is intended for a national television audience,
however, the filmmakers have not ruled out the potential for a limited theatrical run prior
to broadcast. The project is currently in the development stage, although some interviews
have been filmed. The filmmakers are also currently searching for privately held archival
film and or video footage of AIM related history and events.
Background:
In the late winter of 1973, American television viewers saw something they had rarely
seen before on network television: real American Indians. For 71 days, a group of
American Indians led by a militant organization with initials ominously spelling AIM, the
American Indian Movement, held off the force of the U.S. military at a place called
Wounded Knee. "What Wounded Knee told the world," remembers AIM member
Russell Means, "was that John Wayne hadn't killed us all. Suddenly, billions of people
knew we were still alive." But who was this mysterious AIM group, what did they want,
where had they come from, and why was the United States Government so determined to
stop them, even resorting to a military response?
Throughout the mid to late 1960’s, the civil rights movement exploded across the
American landscape. Bus boycotts, sit-ins, and marches were front-page news. Dr.
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were thrust into the limelight as national leaders.
“Black is Beautiful” and “Black Power” were newly minted slogans, as African
Americans began to assert themselves in many aspects of American life previously
unavailable to them. It was a time of great change.
But for Native Americans, little had changed. Most Native Americans found themselves
in the same economically and politically depressed situations of their ancestors.
Reservations were impoverished. Urban Indians, relocated to major cities as part of the
“termination” policy, found themselves alone in slum housing with no job skills or job
prospects. Poverty, disease, and prison were pretty much all that Native people had to
look forward to. The civil rights movement seemed to have passed them by.
But in 1968, three urban American Indian ex-cons, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, and
George Mitchell had a different idea. They met together with other Minneapolis-area
Native Americans to discuss ways to address issues of police brutality, housing,
unemployment, and the treatment of Indian students in the Minneapolis school system.
They felt it was time for Native American voices to rise up and be heard. The group
rejected the initial idea for a name, the Concerned Indians of America, when they realized
the initials spelled CIA.
It was from this humble local meeting that grew one of the most high profile, dangerous,
and controversial Native American organizations in history, the American Indian
Movement, or AIM.
From the start, AIM took a take-no-prisoners confrontational attitude. AIM members
weren’t going to sit at conferences and gradually work toward building political
compromise. “We had to be confrontational to get our foot in the door,” remembers
long-time member Vernon Bellecourt. “Not only put our foot in the door, but kick the
door open if necessary.” Rather than try to assimilate and dress like whites, AIM
members wore their Indian-ness on their bodies, growing their hair long, wearing beads,
chokers, and headbands. It was a style that appealed to many young Native Americans.
“They made it ok to be who we were,” remembers activist Charlene Teters, then in high
school. AIM quickly grew into a national organization as young people signed on.
In many ways modeling themselves after the African American civil rights activism of
the era, AIM engaged in a number of escalating political actions in an effort to draw
awareness to American Indian problems. Taking their cue from the Indian student
occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969, AIM stepped up their activities and began the
planning of confrontational protests and occupations of their own. Their activities
eventually culminated in three extremely high-profile actions that thrust the group into
the national media spotlight: the "Trail of Broken Treaties" march on Washington which
transformed into a desperate week-long occupation and destruction of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs building; a protest in tiny Custer, South Dakota which erupted into a riot
when AIM activists and reservation supporters were physically assaulted by police while
attempting to enter the courthouse where a white man was being arraigned for the murder
of a Lakota named Wesley Bad Heart Bull; and finally the 1973, seventy-one day
occupation of Wounded Knee protesting the FBI and BIA supported tribal government of
controversial, and allegedly criminal Lakota tribal chairman Dick Wilson and his
systematic, violent repression of traditional Lakotas who disagreed with him. But from
the start, AIM was a highly volatile organization made up of some highly volatile
individuals, and controversy and unrest plagued the group. Both inside and outside of
Indian Country, opinions about AIM varied widely – some saw them as heroic, while
critics have sometimes called AIM “Assholes in Moccasins” -- but as AIM members
have often said themselves, AIM may be loved or hated, but they are never ignored. And
loved or hated, the historical impact of this organization too cannot be ignored. Looking
back after over 30 years, what did the American Indian Movement set out to do, were
they successful, what mistakes were made, what led to the demise of the organization,
what role did the FBI play, is the spirit of AIM still alive and what legacy did AIM leave
in it’s wake? Never Ignored will thoroughly explore these questions and more for the
first time, with unprecedented access to AIM’s leaders and members, in the first
comprehensive documentary feature on the American Indian Movement.
Never Ignored: The Story of AIM, the American Indian Movement tells the story of this
controversial civil rights organization. It will examine the birth of the American Indian
Movement through the recollections of the movements’ founders and earliest members,
with a special emphasis on the eyewitness accounts from the three key events mentioned
above, occurring from 1968 – 1973. Furthermore, we will examine the FBI’s
COINTELPRO covert operation to “neutralize” AIM through infiltration, illegal spying,
subversive propaganda, disinformation, harassment, and legal battles whereby aggressive
government misconduct tied up many AIM leaders in court for years.
The FBI and Government repression of AIM culminated in the controversial “Incident at
Oglala,” where two FBI agents and AIM member Joseph Stuntz were shot and killed
after engaging AIM members in a firefight on the Jumping Bull property on the Pine
Ridge Reservation. The highly controversial and flawed extradition from Canada and
murder conviction of AIM member Leonard Peltier, followed by the execution style
murder of AIM member Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, also on Pine Ridge reservation,
marked the beginning of the end of an effective national American Indian movement.
While this film will not be another re-examination of the Peltier and Anna Mae tragedies,
we will close this section of the film by acknowledging that both of these cases continue
to polarize people in the greater Native community, thereby effectively continuing to
carry out the FBI’s campaign to “neutralize,” “disrupt,” and “repress” the red power
movement. Finally, we will look back and examine the legacy of AIM, both the official
organization, and the spirit of the American Indian, or red power movement through
grassroots Indian activism that continues their struggle for equality, treaty rights, and
justice.
While the African American civil rights era has been examined in detail in a number of
film and video documentaries and documentary series (such as PBS’ Eyes on the Prize
series), there has never been a documentary treatment of the founding and entire story of
the American Indian Movement or the American Indian civil rights movement of the
same period. It is time for this story to be told.
The Filmmakers:
Jay Rosenstein
Co-Writer, Co-Producer, Co-Director
Jay Rosenstein is an Emmy award-winning documentary writer, producer, and editor
whose work has been seen on PBS and the Independent Film Channel, and at film
festivals worldwide including the Sundance Film Festival. His previous documentary
work includes the highly influential In Whose Honor? American Indian mascots in
Sport, which aired on the national PBS series Point of View (POV) and was recognized
by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as one of the most
outstanding American television programs on race in 1997-98. His documentary short
Erased debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and won awards from the Ann Arbor and
Black Maria Film Festivals. His latest work, The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out, about
a lesbian chorus in central Illinois, aired on the national PBS series Independent Lens,
and won a CINE Golden Eagle and a Director’s Citation Award from the Black
Maria Film Festival.
James M. Fortier (Métis-Ojibway)
Co-Writer, Co-Producer, Co-Director
James M. Fortier is Métis (pronounced “May-Tee”), of Ojibway and French Canadian
descent, born in Ontario Canada. James was the Director, Co-Writer and Director of
Photography for Alcatraz Is Not An Island, a feature documentary chronicling the 1969
Indian occupation of Alcatraz. This award winning film screened at Sundance 2001, earned
Fortier an Emmy for Directing, and aired nationally on PBS in 2002. James was the
Director and DP for a 90-minute episode of the national PBS documentary series Indian
Country Diaries: Spiral of Fire for Native American Public Telecommunications,
premiering in 2006. In addition he was the Writer, Producer and Director of the
Minnesota PBS environmental documentary Voices For the Land, and he was the Writer
and Associate Producer for the five-time Emmy Award winning 6-hour Ojibway PBS
documentary series Waasa-Inaabidaa: We Look In All Directions. More recently,
James just completed Pulling Together, a documentary feature focusing on the
Muckleshoot tribe’s participation in the 2003 Tribal Canoe Journey in the Puget Sound
area.
James was the Director of Photography for several Native American and First Nations
productions, including the short drama Looks Into the Night, starring Tantoo Cardinal,
and the CBC documentary Today Is a Good Day: Remembering Chief Dan George
among others. James is currently the Co-Producer and Director of Photography for the
documentary American Lynching, and the Co-Producer and Director of Photography
for the documentary feature Green Green Water, which chronicles the devastating
impact of Manitoba Hydro dams on several Cree communities in Northern Manitoba. Also,
Jim recently began production of Playing Pastime: American Indians, Softball, and
Survival, a documentary feature about the history and contemporary world of all Indian
fast-pitch softball.
James has maintained strong ties with his Métis and Ojibway relatives in Ontario and he
has an extensive background working with Native American communities in the U.S.
He was the Co-Director and Co-Producer of the Alcatraz Occupation 30th Anniversary
Cultural Celebration on Alcatraz Island in 1999, and worked with nationally prominent
American Indian activists and performers such as Floyd Red Crow Westerman, John
Trudell, and Ulali among others. James has traveled throughout Indian country bringing
his films and message of American Indian empowerment in the media to reservations,
tribal schools and colleges, and to American Indian Studies programs at major
Universities such as Brown, ASU, USF, Syracuse and Berkeley among others. He has
also donated his time working behind the scenes at the American Indian Film Festival
(the longest running and largest American Indian Film festival in the country) in San
Francisco, and he has taught filmmaking workshops for Native American high school
students.
Contact:
Jay Rosenstein
jrosenst@uiuc.edu
James M. Fortier
jfortier@turtle-island.com