In the trailer for award-winning filmmaker Leya Hale’s latest film “Medicine Ball,” filmmaker and elder Sydney Bean’s voice floats over black-and-white archival footage and photos of Native American students at a Federal Indian Boarding School.
“In one sense, the boarding schools operated against the very purpose of assimilating us and moving us way from each other,” Bean says. “Basketball was a way of liberating us.”
Through the eyes of two Native basketball players from the University of Minnesota Morris, located on the site of a former Indian boarding school, “Medicine Ball” explores just how a beloved sport liberated Native students from the oppressive boarding school system that aimed to strip them of their culture.
Native News Online’s Elyse Wild spoke with Hale about making movies with her siblings as a child, learning about her family’s own history with boarding schools, and how Native communities birth resilience from tragedy.
Q: Tell me where you grew up and what you loved about it.
A: I was born and raised in Southern California. I grew up in the city of Pico Rivera, which is very close to East Los Angeles. What I loved was being so close to Hollywood and being exposed at a young age to auditions. My mother was an aspiring actress when I was younger, so she tried to get my siblings and me involved by having us try out for different commercials.
From a young age, I was fascinated by seeing behind the scenes and on sets. But what really bothered me about growing up so close to Hollywood was the lack of Native representation in all forms of media. I think that’s what really inspired me to enter the field.
Q: Was that lack of representation something you recognized even as a child?
A: Yes, especially because my mom was always going out for Native-themed parts. The parts she was getting were always depictions of Native people before the 1800s. She got background parts in “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and other older Westerns. The very limited things I did see were historical. Contemporary Native stories, anything I could relate to, were definitely lacking.
Q: When did you first understand that you wanted to be a filmmaker?
A: I can remember really early on, around age 8, during the summertime, I would make films with my siblings, cousins, and neighbors. We were Native, and we all wanted to tell those missing stories.
We would borrow somebody’s big VHS camera. We would put “Cinderella” on the television, crank up the sound, and act out the scenes, lip-syncing the lines. But we would indigenize the wardrobes we were wearing.
Early on, I started realizing I had this creative urge to tell stories, which led me to take video production courses in high school and learn the basic concepts of storytelling.
Eventually, like all young aspiring filmmakers, I wanted to go to a really cool film school. My grades weren’t always the best, so I ended up at Cal State Fullerton, in the Orange County area. I went through their radio, television, and film program, and that’s where I really honed the storytelling mechanics. I focused on story structure and screenwriting.
Even though it was narrative, I still found valuable tools in learning how to tell a story through a narrative approach and using those same tools to tell nonfiction documentary stories. I think it’s the same thing: You have a beginning, middle, and end, and you’re trying to convey an overall theme and message to an audience. College is where I found the early beginnings of a voice that I wanted to grow into.
Q: What made “Medicine Ball” an important story for you to tell?
A: I always do my best to listen to the community. I might be talking to somebody, and they might say, “Have you done a film about this?” or, “You should do a film about this.” I always keep those ideas in my back pocket.
I started seeing more and more storytelling around the residential school experience. When I look at what’s already out there, as a storyteller, I start paying attention to what’s missing from the conversation. I always relate it to my own experience and what I heard from my grandparents, who went through boarding school themselves.
On my Navajo side, my grandparents ended up in Southern California through boarding school. They attended Sherman Indian Institute in Riverside, California.
Growing up, I remember hearing my grandparents’ stories. Even though I know they probably went through some tough times, being away from their families and probably having to suffer punishments, they never really talked about that. What they chose to talk about and share with their grandchildren were the intertribal relationships they built with their classmates.
I remember my grandpa talking about learning to dance, learning how to hoop dance. He would talk about his days of almost becoming the school mascot, performing in parades and showing up at different powwows.
When they decided to stay and build their life in Southern California, they had already built so many relationships through that school that a community was there for them. There were cultural exchanges among different tribal groups that allowed them to integrate into this powwow world we know today, a social gathering where there’s dancing, singing, and storytelling through movement.
That’s what I grew up with. I am so grateful that my grandparents instilled that love of culture in me. Hearing the larger conversation nowadays, it’s usually focused on the painful, tragic things that happened to our people. But that never really matched the stories I heard at home.
When I got older and started making my own relationships, I started hearing those same stories from other Native young people, especially about sports. They would say, “My parents played this,” or, “My mom played basketball.” I felt like there was never really a space or forum for Native people to share those experiences.
For me, as a Native filmmaker, I’m always for Native people first. It needs to be created by and for a Native audience. In doing so, the storytelling becomes more nuanced and complex, and everybody can enjoy it.
You get a deeper understanding of the issues we face, but in a more holistic way, where we’re able to reflect not only on the negative side but on the stories that helped people get through those challenging times, those empowering resiliency stories. That’s what I’m really about.
We wouldn’t have thriving communities and the things we have if we hadn’t had our ancestors, our grandparents and great-grandparents, who survived these atrocities. Boarding school was one of them. I wanted to shine a light on what they found in common that created unity and community. That was sports, and one of those was basketball, which I’m passionate about.
I really love basketball. I’m in my 40s, and I’m still playing basketball. I’m always looking for ways to promote a healthy lifestyle, especially as you get older, and to find reasons to come together, build community, and stay physically active with each other.
Q: What did making “Medicine Ball” teach you?
A: After every film I do, I learn more that it’s OK if I don’t have the answers to everything. It’s OK to rely on the actual subjects and storytellers because they’re the experts on their own stories.
When you’re a producer and director, you have to use a lot of creativity and craft the story before it’s even shot, especially when it comes to funding and the other development parts. I feel like the way we’re taught to do films is through a Western lens: You’re in the driver’s seat. You have a vision, and you work with everybody to execute your vision.
But for me, I’m always trying to decolonize myself. I’m learning from other Native filmmakers around me all the time, trying to figure out: How can I make it more community-centered? How do I ask people what their ideas are before I put my ideas on them? I’m always trying to ask, “What do you feel comfortable with?”
I always share my rough cuts along the way because I want to make sure the people involved feel good about it. I’ve always been transparent about the story I’m telling, and I try to take feedback. I try to be more open.
Q: What do you hope viewers will walk away with after watching “Medicine Ball”?
A: I always anticipate Native people themselves leaving with a sense of pride, understanding that our ancestors survived one of the worst atrocities a federal government could place upon its people. A lot of us still carry shame and guilt today. With this film, I’m hoping it will carve out space in our lives for more positive, uplifting discussions about experiences that may have occurred during this era.
Native people found outlets through sports, dancing, sewing- all of these things we now value in our lives today. That all came from somewhere. I felt like that came from young people coming together in survival mode, finding things they had in common, and doing their best to make it through a hard time while being away from their families for so long.
It’s necessary to create space for those good experiences as well and not be afraid to do that.
For non-Native audiences, I want them to understand that it is tough, with that historical trauma, still trying to make it in a higher education setting. There is a lot to it when it comes to that extra weight we have to carry.
I want non-Native people to do their best to support and uplift their Native students. We see these land acknowledgments happening everywhere, but what more can you do? You’re acknowledging that Native people, certain tribes, lived in and around your area. Well, they’re still here today. What else can we do to help them?
Whether that’s supporting the Native center on campus or Native groups on campus, building a space for Native people, that’s a big thing. We’re trying to survive and live in a society that wasn’t built for us. How can we make it work for us? Those are the little seeds I’m hoping educators, especially, will get from this film.
“Medicine Ball” Premieres on Minnesota PBS and National PBS stations on Monday, Nov. 9.
