Rebekka Schlichting is an impact producer on “Bring Them Home,” a film about the Blackfoot Tribe’s efforts to rewild buffalo in partnership with Yellowstone National Park. The image above is a still. (“Bring Them Home”)
Kansas-based Native filmmaker Rebekka Schlicting sheds a light on Native stories
Look within your mind and imagine a Native person — their clothing, adornments, location and even their time. For many non-Natives, these images are steeped in stereotypes, layered with images of Native people from a past that did not provide them with the space to tell their own stories. These dominant, inaccurate narratives are being challenged by individuals like Rebekka Schlichting, enrolled member of the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, who use narrative sovereignty to spread authentic, modern Native stories. Schlichting explains, “People don’t know about Native people, and if they do, they know the stereotypes. And one big stereotype is that we were completely extinct — the genocide was successful in a lot of people’s minds. Very rarely do you see modern stories of Native people.” Through numerous journalistic endeavors and film productions, Schlichting is bringing current, self-told Native stories to national and global audiences, most recently through her film company, Deer Woman Productions.
Deer Woman Productions is currently working with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on Schlichting’s newest film, “Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors,” about the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma returning to their ancestral homelands in Nebraska. The joint project between the Center for Great Plains Studies and the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma is buying land and returning it to the Otoe-Missouria people, including for ceremonial purposes. The project is aimed at reconciliation, healing and awareness. Schlichting and her team are there to document the process and connect with the participants. “It’s been a cool experience to hear people’s connections to Nebraska through their family stories and how they feel when they’re there,” says Schlichting. “It’s like there’s this connection to the place and to the land that goes beyond existing today, but more like in a DNA sense.”
Growing up on the Sac and Fox Nation Reservation, Schlichting was always surrounded by Native people and traditions. At Kickapoo Nation School, she studied Kickapoo language and culture, learned bead working and crafting powwow regalia. In school, she also became enamored with stories and journalism, thanks largely to her eighth-grade journalism teacher, Julie Geiger. This teacher prompted Schlichting and her peers to think deeply about their place in the world and who was telling their stories. She explains, “Because I grew up around a lot of Natives and grew up on reservations, I didn’t realize the ignorance that people had about Native people or the stereotypes we had stacked up against us, until I met with (Geiger). She started talking to us about stereotypes and media.”
Schlichting found success in homing in on Native stories when she started working on her school newspaper, Warrior World. Her high school article about Kansas seeking to enshrine English as the official language of the state, sidelining Native people and their languages, won best High School News Story from the Indigenous Journalists Association. Today, her teacher Geiger is still instrumental in the way Schlichting approaches storytelling. She explains, “(Geiger) started instilling into us why it’s important for us to tell our own stories. She didn’t even know this back then, but she was planting this really awesome seed that has bloomed into this thing I practice called narrative sovereignty, which is where we’re reclaiming our stories. We’re telling our own stories through an authentic lens, through a modern lens.”
Schlichting continued to be drawn to Native stories throughout college, graduating from KU with a degree in journalism. During an internship with Lawrence Journal World, she noticed that Native stories were not figuring prominently in the newspaper. After bringing this to the attention of her editor, she wrote a front-page story on the Idle No More Flash Mob intended to raise awareness about the movement that honors Indigenous sovereignty and focuses on land, water and sky protection. Her 2016-2017 investigative project, the Wounds of Whiteclay, exploring the brutal effects of alcohol and poverty on the Pine Ridge Reservation due to policies and practices of the nearby community of Whiteclay, Nebraska, won the grand prize Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.
These early artistic and journalistic endeavors led Schlichting to documentary filmmaking. From 2017 to 2019, she worked for Vision Maker Media, where she was an assistant director. There she was able to do what she loved by telling Native Stories. She also directed “Seed Warriors” with Firelight Media last year. Now, she has her own film production company, Deer Woman Productions, with her business partner, Candice Dalsing, descendant of Mescalero Apache Tribe. The two formed the production company after their friend Payton Canku died at just 30 years old, shortly before getting her master’s degree from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Canku, an enrolled member of Crow Creek Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, was an avid horror buff. Taking their name from the mythological Deer Woman, who lures bad men and others into the forest where they are never seen again, Deer Woman Productions is in the process of bringing Canku’s dissertation, the creature feature “Rez Monster,” to life.
Schlichting is also an impact producer on “Bring Them Home,” a film about the Blackfoot Tribe’s efforts to rewild buffalo in partnership with Yellowstone National Park. Buffalo are allowed to migrate between Yellowstone and the Blackfoot Reservation. “It’s a story about conservation. It’s a story about Natives acting sovereignly on behalf of the buffalo relatives,” says Schlichting. As an impact producer, Schlichting organizes community engagement events. At one such event, Jason Champagne, “The Native Chef,” prepared a full buffalo meal to go along with the film. At another, buffalo were harvested in a daylong community gathering.
In all, Schlichting is reframing Native stories using narrative sovereignty, shining a light on communities that have often been stereotyped or outright ignored. As a Native person telling Native stories, she is opening the door to greater visibility, understanding and respect.
For more information about Rebekka Schlichting, visit www.journalism.ku.edu/people/rebekka-schlichting.
