HELENA — The Myrna Loy is hosting an Indigenous Film Festival on September 26th to help provide a platform for native voices.
The festival will be held on the Thursday before American Indian Heritage Day. The Myrna Loy has held similar events over the past 6 years to help provide a platform to voices who have not historically been heard.
“People that historically in Montana haven’t been given a platform, haven’t been heard from, and these stories are really important to both our history and as we move forward,” says Benji Cosgrove, Executive Director of The Myrna Loy.
This year’s film fest will feature 6 films that focus on Indigenous peoples. One of those films is Native Ball about Malia Kipp from the Blackfeet Reservation. In 1992, Kipp became the first Montana tribal member to play Division 1 women’s basketball on a full-ride scholarship. Megan Harrington worked on the film, which is an offshoot of another film.
“There’s so much footage and there’s so many stories from that feature. He said Malia’s, you know, that would be something to tell. And so, we really extracted the story from that feature,” says Harrington.
Harrington says these films help showcase differing perspectives on the same state.
“There’s different cultural things that we could be more aware of and in watching films like this it make, hopefully makes you go, 'Ohh, okay, I didn’t realize that. That’s interesting. I want to learn more',” says Harrington.
Mike Jetty, Indian Education Specialist with MT OPI, says films like those featured in the festival give representation to those in the Indigenous community and help supplement the Montana Constitution’s mandate to teach about Indigenous people.
“You know, community events like this at The Myrna, you know, support that. But then, I guess just help to provide a more inclusive narrative of our state’s history, you know, looking at, you know, Indigenous perspectives regarding, you know, lots of different topics,” says Jetty.
Tickets are available through The Myrna Loy’s website.
