Trail of Tears DVD
INDIGENOUS INSTITUTE of the AMERICAS
INSTITUTO INDIGENISTA de las AMERICAS
New DVD release by Riche-Heape films – Trail of Tears
http://www.richheape.com/ - see a slide show of productions pictures
Also, article in Dallas Morning News this past Sunday.
Cheryl Hall: 'Trail of Tears' film takes a lone route
'History has always been written by the victors,' principal says
03:16 PM CDT on Sunday, April 2, 2006
Chip Richie and Steven Heape want to turn one of the darkest chapters of American history into a commercial success.
The 55-year-old principals of Dallas-based Rich-Heape Films Inc. have just released Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy, a two-hour documentary about the forced removal of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast told largely from the Cherokee perspective.
"Unfortunately, history has always been written by the victors," says Mr. Heape, an enrolled Cherokee citizen. "The one myth Chip and I wanted to dispel was that the government swooped down to save the poor starving Cherokees and moved them off to beautiful Oklahoma, the land of opportunity."
Rather, says Mr. Heape, the 16,000 Cherokees forced off their lands in 1838 were Europeanized with an established government, constitution and written language. Many owned plantations tended to by black slaves.
More than a quarter of the Cherokee Nation perished along the 800-mile march.
For Mr. Richie, who directed the film, and Mr. Heape, executive producer, this has been a decade-long labor of love.
The filmmakers, in business together since 1981, simply couldn't be politically correct.
"A federal government agency came in at the beginning as a 50-50 partner but became very distressed at our historical context," says Mr. Heape, not willing to name names. "Halfway through the project, it decided this wasn't a story it wanted told."
Actor James Earl Jones, who narrates the film, says the Trail of Tears has been "romanticized and glossed over" for too long.
"Our sense of reality gets too much varnish," says Mr. Jones. "The excuse is we've got to think positively. But positive thinking at the expense of truth is really a crime.
"This is a painful movie that the world needs to watch."
A challenge
The high-definition DVD has a built-in core audience: nearly 600,000 citizens of the Cherokee Nation, which will host the world premiere in Tahlequah, Okla., on April 14.
"Trail of Tears," says Principal Chief Chadwick "Corntassel" Smith, "is critical in reflecting the history of the Cherokee Nation and preserving our future.
"The stories told are stories that recur today. They may not be 800-mile forced marches, but the continued reduction in tribes' rights and sovereignty."
The video, which retails for $35, will be out within the next month and is already available on the company's Web site, www.richheape .com, through Amazon and at the Native Arts Center & Gallery in the Preston Forest Shopping Center.
But the financial success of the film, which cost the four-person Dallas film company $675,000 to get to this point, depends on broadcast revenue.
Black Indians, released four years ago, put Rich-Heape on the map as a legitimate producer of diverse programming.
The film about this "minority of two minorities" finally turned a profit after ABC aired it in early 2003, with Verizon Communications Inc., General Motors Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. as underwriters.
Film distributor MG Perin Inc. in New York, which syndicated that deal, is negotiating with the History Channel and PBS to license Trail of Tears.
Mr. Heape is challenging major financial institutions making millions of dollars from managing tribal casino wealth to put up or shut up.
"They all portray themselves as doing great things for Indians, but when you ask them what they've actually done, they can't give much of a report card. They need to underwrite this project so it gets broadcast."
One major corporation has declined his pitch. Three others are "taking it under consideration."
The 113-minute film was shot on location in six states over 2 ½ years. It was edited from more than 150 hours of interviews with American Indians, academics and experts on the Cherokee removal and President Andrew Jackson's role.
Shooting on location while traveling with 100 Cherokee extras cost up to $25,000 a day for 37 days, Mr. Richie says. Then they had seven months of post-production that cost about $150,000.
That was a relative bargain, Mr. Heape says. "In Hollywood or New York dollars, it would have run twice as much with the union fees."
Celebrities pitch in
The total also doesn't reflect what it would have cost for the celebrities who donated their services or charged nominal fees: actors Mr. Jones, Wes Studi and James Garner, and country-Western singer Crystal Gayle.
Mr. Garner donated his voice work just a month after triple bypass surgery.
Why?
"I'm part Indian," Mr. Garner says succinctly.
Mr. Studi spoke in contemporary Cherokee to add to the film's authenticity.
"For we Cherokee, it is the story of our holocaust – a tragedy, never to be forgotten," says the 48-year-old star of The Last of the Mohicans, Geronimo and Dances with Wolves.
"For the American, it should be a lesson learned and never repeated, and certainly never to be forgotten."
This was the second Rich-Heape production to earn Mr. Jones' support. He also narrated Black Indians.
"My grandmother was part Cherokee-Choctaw," he explains. "Her history was so painful that she couldn't share it with us. Being part of these movies, I can begin to feel and understand the pain she felt."
E-mail cherylhall@dallasnews.com
