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'Older Than America' hits home for audience in Cloquet

Janna Goerdt
Duluth News Tribune - 04/04/2008

Few, if any, of the people who crowded into the Premiere Theatres in
Cloquet on Thursday had ever stepped foot in an Indian boarding school.

But many of their mothers had. Their fathers had. Their grandparents,
uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, friends and classmates had. And it
damaged many of their lives, sometimes irreparably.

So it was that many who were lucky enough to get tickets to the first area
showing of “Older than America,” which tells the story of a woman haunted
by her family’s boarding school experience, felt a powerful connection to
the story.

It touched Margaret Roth of Cloquet. Her grandparents had both attended
boarding schools, and they constantly told her father what they had learned
— he was worthless, he was nothing because of his American Indian heritage.

“My dad suffered so much, and he didn’t talk about it,” Roth said. She
thought of her father as she watched the film and wept afterwards.

The movie was filmed largely on and near the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation
in 2006 with the support and blessing of band leaders. Many people felt it
was important to lay bare an often hidden and shame-filled period of
history, the boarding school era.

And many had their first chance on Thursday to see a Hollywood rarity: a
film about American Indians created largely by American Indians. The film
has had showings in Minneapolis and at a Texas film festival.

Local landmarks feature prominently in the film, which opens with a
collection of scenes featuring a flag printed with the Fond du Lac tribal
logo, the band-owned gas station, the Sappi paper plant in Cloquet and the
Black Bear Casino.

Premiere Theatres owner Rick Stowell gave up his business for the night to
accommodate the opening, and said he was shocked at the intense interest.

“We’ve played all the big movies,” Stowell said — think the “Star Wars”
series and “Titanic” — but he never had to turn so many people away,
Stowell said. Hundreds, perhaps close to 1,000, people were unable to get
tickets for the limited showing. All proceeds will be donated to the
Cloquet Education Foundation.

American Indian actress and film director Georgina Lightning was there on
Thursday and said she, too, was amazed at the turnout. Lightning will be
shopping her film around in coming months, trying to find a distributor to
bring her film to nationwide audiences.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” audience members murmured to Lightning as
they filed out after one screening. Following a showing in Minneapolis,
Lightning said one devout Catholic apologized for the sins of his church. A
devious Catholic priest figures prominently in the film.

Fostering such conversation is important to Lightning, a member of the Cree
Indian Nation.

“It’s a part of our history,” she said. “We need to heal and move on.”

Not that that will be an easy thing to do.

“I have 50 years of memories of listening to my grandpa talk about running
away from the boarding school, of the atrocities,” said Jeff Savage,
director of the Fond du Lac Cultural Museum. He watched the film on
Thursday. “I have literally seen my elders crying over their memories. I
can still see the hurt in their eyes and hearts.”

Fond du Lac Band member Francis DeVerney of Cloquet can remember his mother
talking about the era. “My mother was a product of the boarding schools,”
he said. DeVerney’s grandparents had lived in boarding schools and, as a
result, ended up sending their own children to foster homes. Seeing some of
those experiences on the big screen made it seem more real, DeVerney said.

“It was horrible, how the kids were taken away from their parents,” said
11-year-old Jordan DeVerney. “It was cruel.”

But there also were moments of beauty and community in the movie,
particularly the ending, which brought many audience members to tears.

“I liked the positive ending,” Roth said. Many local band members appeared
as extras in the film’s final scene, where community members who had been
spiritually lost were enfolded back into the tribe as part of a drumming
circle.

“It’s like we’re finding our way back,” Roth said. “That touches something
inside.”