LIVE: Award-Winning Native Filmmaker Goes to National Festival

BISMARCK — He’s an award-winning filmmaker from right here in our region.

And now, he and his short film are headed to a national native film festival.

Bismarck-based filmmaker Chauncey Hopkins is taking his short film “Wokiksuya” to the “Pocahontas Reframed” Storytellers Film festival Richmond, Virginia, in November.

It gathers indigenous filmmakers from around North America for panels and screenings.

Hopkins’ film tells the story of a Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara family struggling in the aftermath of losing a baby.

Hopkins is self-taught, and says he’s looking forward to creating his first full-length theatrical feature.

He wrote, shot and edited “Wokiksuya” himself.

He says the story taps into some of his own personal experiences of navigating loss and grieving after losing several family members in a short time frame.

Hopkins joined the Morning Show to talk about how he transformed his own personal losses into a work of art, about winning the Tribal College Journal film contest,  and why projects like this are  part of a recent national surge of interest in indigenous television and film with mainstream audiences nationwide.

For more information: Tribal College Journal