Mark St. Pierre

I live on the Pine ridge Indian Reservation and i tend to write about and for the Lakota People, the people I live with. My books and films are however enjoyed by people all over the world, but I write and produce for here first. I have been directing the only on-Reservation Film School in North America for the last 6 years. We call it Reel Jobs. it is our goal to attack diversity by building local, Native American capacity in front of and behind the camera. We must stop waiting for the film world to find us, to find Native Producers and Writers it ain't gonna happen! My writing career has spanned 5 decades including a nomination for a Pulitzer in 1992 and an NEA fellowship in Creative Non-Fiction. My books stay in print year after year. Our small company Cloud Horse Media has produced, without outside help, three feature length films in the last 10 years. "Mato Paha :Rally to Protect Bear Butte", on the sacred places in SD and the incursion of the fracking industry to this sacred area, "Who Will Burty the Dead?" (Amazon Prime) a look at 150 years of Christian Lakota history but focuses on the spiritual decolonization that has occurred amongst Lakota People over the last 50 years." Mallards' Road", is a feature length Romantic Dramedy set here in the present. In each film everyone involved in production are Lakota, many under thirty years of age. I have been invited to Hollywood numerous times over my carer to discuss my projects. To date, a Native film with few parts for White Actors is not going to be made. We live in a changing time and production companies are finally seeing the wisdom of reaching out for material from a corner of the world less explored. When Non-Indian film makers come here, they see and emphasize the poverty often producing poverty porn. Life here is far richer than that and material wealth and cultural wealth are not the same. Universally human stories that emphasize the common humanity of Native People is what we are about!