Film Symposium
Enjoy the Film Symposium at First Peoples Festival consisting of important films and presentations by the filmmakers of “The American Buffalo – A Film by Ken Burns” and “The American Buffalo Homecoming”, Jason Baldes and Julianna Brannum
“Buffalo was our food, our clothing, our shelter — but also central to our cultural and spiritual belief systems. It’s been missing for a long period of time, and so to restore that animal to our communities means we can begin to heal.”
“Buffalo was our food, our clothing, our shelter — but also central to our cultural and spiritual belief systems. It’s been missing for a long period of time, and so to restore that animal to our communities means we can begin to heal.”
Jason Baldes
Jason, an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe, received both his bachelor's and master's degrees in Land Resources & Environmental Sciences from Montana State University, where he focused on the restoration of buffalo/bison to Tribal lands. In 2016, he spearheaded the successful effort to relocate a herd to the Wind River Indian Reservation and works with both the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes in buffalo management and expansion. He is an advocate, educator and speaker on Indigenous cultural revitalization and ecological restoration who has also served as director of the Wind River Native Advocacy Center, where he was instrumental in the passing of the Wyoming Indian Education for All Act. He currently splits time as executive director of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, and Tribal Buffalo Program Senior Manager for the National Wildlife Federation's Tribal Partnerships Program. Jason sits on the board of directors of the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council and the board of trustees for the Conservation Lands Foundation
Julianna Brannum, Filmmaker
Julianna Brannum is a documentary filmmaker based in Oklahoma. She served as Consulting Producer on The American Buffalo, directed by Ken Burns, and as Director and Producer of the short film Homecoming, a companion to Burns’s two-part series, both coming to PBS in Fall 2023. She was Director/Producer of the PBS documentary LaDonna Harris: Indian 101 for which she won fellowships from the Sundance Institute/Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation/Tribeca Film Institute. She was Producer of the Independent Lens documentary, Conscience Point, Series Producer on the 2018 Emmy-nominated PBS series, Native America, and Producer of Through the Repellent Fence, which screened at MoMA and SxSW. She also served as Co-producer for Stanley Nelson’s We Shall Remain: Wounded Knee. Brannum made her directorial debut with The Creek Runs Red which aired on Independent Lens in 2007 and is a citizen of the Quahada band of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma.
