Stories We Have Earned: The Stoney Nakoda Film Project is a blending of cinema history and the history of my people the Stoney Nakoda. I want to use the many films shot in our community to tell the bigger history of our struggle against the many injustices placed upon the Stoney under Treaty 7. The conditions the Stoney were forced to endure in the years after the signing of the treaty in 1877 were extremely difficult and the disparity and injustice surrounding the treaty continue to plague the bands to this day. My family and I are from the Eden Valley Bearspaw first nation which is one of the three nations of the Stoney Nakoda. My family have close ties to some of the films shot on our lands from the 70’s until the present having been involved in numerous film and TV projects. My Father Keith Lefthand as well as my Grandfather John Lefthand were in the massacre scene in Little Big Man. He was later a warrior on horseback in the Samurai film Heaven and Earth. My interest in becoming a filmmaker comes partially out of the stories my extended family has told me about working in the films.

When settlers think about Banff National Park they think of its spectacular scenic beauty and the preservation of nature – we see Canada’s first National Park in a much different light – as a place where promises were broken and where for almost fifty years we were only welcome in the park if we would submit to the humiliation of parading in front of tourists and posing for photographs during Indian Days where our payment was food rations and tips from the tourists. At the same time that we were performing for Indian Days in Banff or acting in the Hollywood productions in traditional dress and even speaking in the Stoney language the Federal and Provincial governments were conducting acts of cultural genocide as they tried to eradicate our traditional way of life, language and customs.

The collaboration with Hollywood film, exciting as it may seem on the surface, was not always positive but collaborating on the films gave the community a feeling of being included in something rather than the general experience of being excluded from the greater society. As my father Keith Lefthand says in the interview we did with him, participating in the films was done more out of necessity than for a love of film – but there was certainly a sense of pride of being part of Little Big Man even if it was tinged with sadness. It’s this complicated and conflicting view that I’ve tried to capture with Stories We Have Earned: The Stoney Nakoda Film Project.