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Spellbinding, heartbreaking and exhaustingly researched, director Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating epic look into the mass murders of the Osage over oil rights in the 1920s opens Oct. 20 in wide release across the United States.
Even getting the story to the big screen was not without drama – requiring a rewrite of the entire script, a change in the lead role from hero to villain for one of the movie’s biggest stars, recreation of a 100-year-old town, the hiring of dozens of Osage extras, a pandemic shut down, and finally a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in France to rave reviews and a nine-minute standing ovation.
Is it worth the hype? The 3½ hour, $200 million answer is yes.
This is a director at the top of his game who humbly realized the story he originally meant to tell — about the White savior FBI coming into town to find the killers and clean up the murders — wasn’t the story he wanted to tell. READ MORE — Sandra Hale Schulman, Special to ICT
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OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma lawmakers’ decision to extend tribal compacts without the governor’s blessing withstood its first legal challenge after the state’s highest court refused to hear the case.
In a 6-3 decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court announced Monday that it would not hear a case brought by a conservative nonprofit against House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, and Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City. The lawsuit questioned whether lawmakers violated state law.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court did not issue an opinion explaining why it refused to consider the case.
The Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs’ lawsuit alleged that lawmakers’ decision to extend tribal tobacco compacts through Senate Bill 26X was unconstitutional in part because the bill was considered during a “budget-related special session,” originated in the wrong chamber and passed without the required supermajority needed to raise revenue. READ MORE — Oklahoma Voice
Bethany Sam feels a spiritual connection to the high desert of northern Nevada.
A member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Kutzadik’a Paiute people, Sam works for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, whose reservation sits just north of Reno, Nevada.
It’s about 200 miles from what could be the country’s largest natural deposit of lithium, a critical mineral suddenly in high demand for use in electric vehicle batteries and electronics.
The distance doesn’t mean Reno-Sparks won’t be affected by the decades-long process of extracting the material from the ground and putting it into the domestic supply chain. A Canadian firm, Lithium Americas, has received federal approval to begin mining at the site, and several indigenous and environmental groups are worried about the potential impacts. READ MORE — Sierra Nevada Ally
Director Martin Scorsese’s new movie, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” tells the true story of a string of murders on the Osage Nation’s land in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Based on David Grann’s meticulously researched 2017 book, the movie delves into racial and family dynamics that rocked Oklahoma to the core when oil was discovered on Osage lands.
White settlers targeted citizens of the Osage Nation to steal their land and the riches beneath it. But from a historical perspective, this crime is just the tip of the iceberg.
From the early 1800s through the 1930s, official U.S. policy displaced thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homes through the policy known as Indian removal. And throughout the 20th century, the federal government collected billions of dollars from sales or leases of natural resources like timber, oil and gas on Indian lands, which it was supposed to disburse to the land’s owners. But it failed to account for these trust funds for decades, let alone pay Indians what they were due.
I am the manager of the University of Arizona’s Indigenous Governance Program and a law professor. My ancestry is Comanche, Kiowa and Cherokee on my father’s side and Taos Pueblo on my mother’s side. From my perspective, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is just one chapter in a much larger story: The U.S. was built on stolen lands and wealth. READ MORE — The Conversation
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On Monday the International Olympic Committee announced that Lacrosse, called the Medicine Game, will be played in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. It will mark the first time the Indigenous game will be played in the Olympics since 1908. Stewart Huntington spoke with Rex Lyons from the Haudenosaunee Nationals.
This was quite a week for ICT. First, the founder and editor-at-large Mark Trahant was inducted into the National Native American Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Then, Indij Public Media’s president, Karen Michel, is honored by the Women’s Media Center in New York City.
WATCH
In the first few minutes of the short film, “The Roof,” a Northern Cheyenne teenager approaches his grandfather’s house out in the woods. His grandfather is up on the roof, banging away with a hammer.
“Grandpa, what are you doing?,” the kid asks.
When the grandpa doesn’t respond, the kid walks back inside the house, calling home and asking when he can leave.
That scene is one writer of the film, W.A.W. Parker, Northern Cheyenne, knows well. The film stars Phoenix Wilson, M’Chigeeng First Nation, and Wes Studi, Cherokee. READ MORE — Nika Bartoo-Smith, ICT + Underscore News
- Judge orders attempted murder trial in activist shooting: Ryan Martinez is accused of shooting Hopi and Akimel O’odham activist during Spanish conquistador statue protest
- Medicine game heads to 2028 Olympics: For years, the Haudenosaunee Nationals have been in the lead in asking for lacrosse to be an Olympic sport
- Why Indigenous youth are gathering to fight a green energy project: Two years after a wind farm was ruled illegal in Norway, Sámi activists are still fighting for its closure
- Hollywood’s actors strike is nearing its 100th day
- Palestinians trapped in Gaza find nowhere is safe
- Sidney Powell pleads guilty in case over efforts to overturn Trump’s Georgia loss
We want your tips, but we also want your feedback. What should we be covering that we’re not? What are we getting wrong? Please let us know. dalton@ictnews.org.
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