Bentonville's 21c Museum Hotel is hosting a film screening of "Drowned Land" Thursday evening at 6. It's free of charge. The documentary focuses on the twice-dammed Kiamichi River, nestled in the Choctaw Nation, and the struggle to protect the tribe's waters. Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis recently spoke with the film's creator, Colleen Thurston, about the making of the documentary and this week's screening. Thurston says she's deeply connected to both sides of the film's story, and says the inspiration to make the film came from a few different places.
Thurston: One was my tribe was in a kind of long-term legal battle to protect the water in our reservation. And I kept hearing about this Sardis Lake — it's on the opposite side of the reservation from where my family is from. So I wasn't familiar with it. And I started going down there and talking to people and interviewing people. And then that led me to the story of the film, which really is around the protection of the Kiamichi River. People would tell me, yeah, Sardis Lake has kind of a controversial past and it does need protection. But protecting this river from development is really the focus. And so I listened to the community, and that's how I ended up making a film about the protection of the Kiamichi.
Travis: And I understand that you are not only connected through the Choctaw tribe to the river, but you're also connected to the development side of it?
Thurston: Yeah. That's the other aspect that I ended up exploring in the documentary. Sardis Lake is a man-made lake, as are most lakes in Oklahoma. And my grandfather, who was also Choctaw, was an engineer and he worked to help design a lot of these dams. So I was really interested in exploring that irony — once you build a dam and it floods an entire area, people end up having to move. And so us being Choctaw and being displaced from our homeland in what's now Mississippi, and then him working in a way to not only commodify water, which I think now can be seen as quite controversial, but also to be involved in displacing people from their land — I found that to be a really interesting subject to explore.
Travis: How was it navigating that? What were your personal feelings as you learned more about your tribe's displacement and your grandfather's hand in that?
Thurston: I actually pretty quickly realized, talking to my mom about his work and just doing deeper reflection and deeper research — my grandfather was part of the Greatest Generation, right? He fought in World War II. He was a child of the Dust Bowl. And so for him to have a job as an American Indian with the federal government — he had a pension, and that pension really in a lot of ways set my family up for success. We all went to college. And so I quickly learned, okay, this isn't just a black and white kind of story. And I don't feel the need to redeem my grandfather for his work, because I think he was doing what he thought was best at the time — setting his family up for success, working on dams that at that time were really considered to be engineering marvels. I don't think that in the 1950s to 1980s there was as much deeper thought as maybe there could have been about that kind of work. But I do really feel like this is the second chapter of my family's legacy. This is almost an answer to his work — telling more of the story of this kind of water commodification that didn't just end with him. It still goes on, and now allows me to work within the same space but interrogate it more.
Travis: Let's talk about some of that interrogation. Don't give too much away, but could you kind of guide us down the river, so to speak, and tell us what we might learn watching this documentary?
Thurston: Absolutely. At the surface level, the documentary is really about a group of water protectors that are determined to save the Kiamichi River from a hydroelectric plant. But it is a personal documentary — I am in it. I kind of start to explore this legacy of resource extraction and how it relates to my tribe, how it relates to displacement of people. And it delves into the history of the area and the history of the Choctaw people, and really in a broader way, the history of America as well.
Travis: Where can we go to see this movie in person? And I understand that you might be there as well?
Thurston: I will be there. On Thursday at 21c Museum Hotel — really excited to be there. And it is complementing their current exhibit, which focuses on interrogating humans' relationship to nature. It's a great exhibit. I'm really excited to be a part of it and to screen the film. The screening is at 6 p.m. on Thursday at 21c Museum Hotel, and it is free, open to everyone. Content-wise, it's good for the whole family. Older kids will get a little bit more out of it. Six o'clock, and then I'll do a Q&A afterwards. If you're interested in environmental stories, if you're interested in history — and especially history that pertains to this region of the country — this is going to be a great film for you.
Colleen Thurston is the director of the documentary "Drowned Land." She spoke with Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis last week. You can visit 21cmuseumhotels.com/bentonville for more about Thursday night's screening, which begins at 6 at 21c in Bentonville. Reservations are available through Eventbrite. You can also check out drownedland.com for more about the film itself.
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