The final documentary films in the “OLLI Movies that Matter” film series affirms the bonds of family, explores Native history and gives a snapshot of contemporary Native American life. Joining as speakers are Shirley Sneve, executive director of Vision Maker Media, and Kevin Abourezk, journalist and managing editor of Indianz.com.

The two films “Across the Creek” and “Return to Rainy Mountain” will be shown on Thursday, April 11, 7 p.m., at Grace Lutheran Church, 2225 Washington St. The films are offered free of charge and are open to the public. Registration is requested for planning purposes.

The filmmaker, Jonny Cournoyer, the son of a full-blood registered Lakota tribal member spent every summer on the Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota. For “Across the Creek,” Cournoyer’s first documentary, he returned to the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservation and revisited the land and the culture that had such an impact on him as a child. The film is a conversation between the elder and younger generations about reclaiming their stories and culture. By looking at traditional family structure, spirituality, language and values, they hope to build a vision for the future. This half-hour film first aired on PBS in October of 2014.

“Return to Rainy Mountain” is based on the life of Pulitzer Prize winning author N. Scott Momaday and seen through the lens of his filmmaker daughter, Jill Momaday Gray. Together, they retrace the route of his bestselling book, “The Way to Rainy Mountain.” Momaday, a beloved American writer, has spent his life providing a firsthand perspective of being Indian in America through his poems, books, plays and his art. The documentary is a road trip to sacred Kiowa ancestral sites that inform the ancient Kiowa myths, legends and oral traditions. The half-hour film’s initial release date was in October of 2017.

The films are being revisited with Shirley Sneve, executive director of Vision Maker Media, which helped fund and distributed the films. Vision Maker Media, originally known as the Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium, founded in 1977 and then Native American Public Telecommunication in 1995, changed its corporate name in 2013. The nonprofit organization, based at NET, receives funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and continues to support the creation, promotion and distribution of Native media.

Sneve, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, has been in Nebraska for 10 years. She started her career as a producer for South Dakota Public Broadcasting. Prior to her move to Nebraska, she has served as director of Arts Extension Service in Amherst, Massachusetts, and the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science’s Visual Arts Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Kevin Abourezk, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, spent 19 years as a reporter and editor for the Lincoln Journal Star and now serves as managing editor for Indianz.com, a website with a mission of providing quality news, information and entertainment from a Native American perspective. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Dakota and a master’s degree in journalism and mass communications from UNL.

Free. Open to the public.

Register online: https://cehs25.unl.edu/wconnect/ace/quickpick.awp

Register by telephone by calling the OLLI office:
402-472-6265
(For more than one individual)