(upbeat music) - Well, our first guest on today's Big One Radio Show, our Champagne Sunday Show is artist, photographer, and filmmaker, Deborah Anderson. She's joining us to talk about her powerful documentary, and that's a word that comes to mind, it's powerful. It's called "Women of the White Buffalo." She spent two years working on the documentary and it shares the stories of the Lakota women living on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota. And the film has already won all kinds of awards, like Best Feature Documentary at the 24th Red Nation International Film Festival. She was best director of a feature documentary at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and many more. And right now we're gonna talk about the documentary, talk about the issues out on Pine Ridge, and what the women are facing, the Lakota women, and their strengths and power of how they're standing up to the truth as well. But also about a fundraising campaign that she's doing right now so that this documentary, it's won awards, it's powerful, but it does need to get out on all streaming platforms. And hey, how many of us are living on streaming music and movies and Facebook things? So we wanna get this out there to many people. And I encourage you to go to the website. It is womenofthewhitebuffalo.com. You can also learn more about Debra at DebraEnderson.com. So welcome Debra, how are you doing? - Oh, thank you. I am well. Thank you so much. - We're really glad to have you here on the show and also just really, really appreciate the work that you've done on Women of the White Buffalo. I know this is your second feature film. I know you've got a few more books out and you've done so much in photography and but you know, Women of the White Buffalo, where did that start for you to say, okay, I'm gonna go do this documentary. - Well, I have to say, I love what you both spoke to about the responsibility of telling one's truth through art. I think my brother was like, are you an activist or are you an artist? And I said, I'm an artist because through art, you can say so much and you can reach so many people. And then as an artist, you put that work out into the world and really it's up to the people to receive it as they wish to receive it. You know, as an activist, you feel there's a lot of pounding of the pavement and having to scream at people to listen but through art, I think it really opens awareness to many people that probably wouldn't know about the big issues around the world. So I will, as a segue into sort of why I end up on the Pine Ridge and the Rosebud reservations in South Dakota was really because I wanted to speak to stories that were bigger than anything I've ever done before and really push myself into an arena that I know would wake my consciousness up, would really elevate my consciousness and speak to issues that I think really need to be taken and look at, especially with women, as we speak about empowering women and the remembering of the matriarchal societies that we once were, especially the native understanding of that. So for me to step into this new arena of documenting stories through a film, "Women of the White Buffalo" was such a gift for me to expand on the years that it's taken me to understand light and to be able to hold a camera and understand what it is to be an artist and then when you're faced with a reality where you're not having people pose, you're not having people show up the way you would like, it's them being in their authentic self. Thank God, I spent years perfecting my part so that I could sit there and hold those stories and not be worrying about lighting and worrying about these other issues, as one does as an artist, creating the perfect scene. It was what it was and I basically was able just to sit and hold the space and do the best job I could possibly do to hear the stories and now put them into an 85-minute piece of film that I hope I pray will really move people to waking up. - I think this is brilliant, it's brilliant, I think your sense of Mike, you feel responsible to put that word out in the right way that you can feel it in what you've done in the film. There's a responsibility that somehow landed on your shoulders. - Yeah, I want to say, and I kept him with him as well. Sorry, sorry, yeah, I just said I checked him with him as we were doing it, it never was taking stories, farming stories, then going back home and editing into a piece of film that they never would have a say in. Like I kept going back, I would show them edits just to really gift them their voices in the right way. - Because each woman that you were interviewing and they're all of different ages and you looked at everything from education to addiction to trafficking and just, there's so many issues and showing the history. And what I think is so important about what you've done is that this is, you're talking on the Lakota side and at the same time, what's happening on this reservation is not just on this reservation, it's happening in Canada, it's happening in different places where women are disappearing and it's not just there. And I think this is something for, this is a crisis and I think it's a global crisis. Nancy at the beginning of the show who talked about this is something that reminds us of when we were in Kenya, women were disappearing too. And it wasn't just Christianity, I wanna say that. There was all religions got involved in regards to brainwashing or trying to and doing anything. But this is, but I feel you're standing up for a lot of indigenous women around the world with this. It felt like, to me it was like, okay, so Pine Ridge and the Rosebud Reservations, they have these problems. And then I'm like, it's just a mirror to the rest of the world. 'Cause most people still don't know the grim realities of the natives, what they face living on these reservations currently. So what it is to be a modern day Native American in these communities. And so for me, I learned so much. I'd say that my naivety, prior to arriving onto the reservations, which I was invited to come and do so by Carol Einrok Herrera, who's the elder in the film. When we first spoke, I said, you know, I have to be honest, I don't know. I started to do some research. And there is a lot of press around it. If you go online and you go down the rabbit hole, you can find things. However, it isn't something you see on a daily basis. And so yet again, in my learning, in educating myself, I was reminded that I was not taught any of this at school. And I was brought up in a boarding school in England. And we think about the British, you know, invasion and the European invasion, the Italians and the Spanish coming to the Americas and creating what we now know as America. None of that was spoken about in my curriculum, let alone, of course, what's happening in the U.S. curriculum. The Native kids are being taught to the federal government's curriculum, which doesn't speak to the truth as to what really went down with the Native peoples and the genocide of the peoples. So it was very new to me. But really, if you wanted to search, there is information. However, there is no data that really most communities have no data as to, like, you speak of the missing and murdered indigenous women's talents, those numbers. You know, historically, know that the Native communities have been made vulnerable and, in most parts, invisible. And so, you know, a lot of places don't collect the Native American data, which them at risk for all of these things. And then, of course, now we know with the COVID that has hit the Navajo reservation very, very hard. And just speaking like you said, it's the stories being more than just the Lakota people. When I would drive back from South Dakota, I would drive back from the reservation to California. It was a two-day road trip. We'd stopped through some of the other reservations. And I remember we were in Gallup. And I was speaking to one of the ladies working in one of the Native stores. And, you know, their artwork and their beadwork and, you know, what they still do creatively. It's just so beautiful and so powerful. So I was looking at some of the Navajo pieces and the woman behind the desk said, "What are you doing here?" And I said, "Oh, it's shooting this film. "It's about the women." And we want to really bring an awareness to the voices of the Native women. And she said, "Oh, it's not just happening there." And then she said, "It's perceived to tell me "a horrific story." And she said, "It's everywhere." On these reservations, people don't talk about it. And it took me months to really sit with what I've learned and all these hours and hours of story that I've gathered and try and make sense of it. 'Cause it's so big, it's so big. - And the drug part, the meth and the alcohol, you know, that is something that, you know, Native Americans weren't doing that, you know. Alcohol, you bring that up. And how they were saying how that was not here when, you know, Christopher Columbus came over. And I think you had a stat of 90% of the Native American population is gone. You know, since Christopher, when he got here, here it is. And it wasn't just him, that was the beginning. But the alcohol and drugs, we were talking about this with friends last night. We drove through Shiprock at late at night, early in the morning. It was just one of, you know, the crazy road trips. We all do, right? You're driving around these areas. And we got into Gallup, and, I mean, not into Gallup, but it was in Shiprock on our way to to Gallup. And we went to the stop sign, and there were some young teenagers on the median, and they pushed another one, like though they were pushing it into the car, the person into the car. And then as we got onto 491, it happened again, they were almost like pushing each other into the car as a dare, a moving vehicle. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be the drugs. And I've heard that it is happening in some other areas too. And I don't know if you saw any of that, but it's this weird thing. I don't know, you know, I've never taken mess. I don't know if that's what happens, but there are new areas. And but that's that kind of thing where teenagers do that. I know there's all kinds of things they've done with like choking themselves and all of that. But I mean, I mean, I mean, I know it's sad to say that, you know, a lot of people have said to me, oh, what drugs are everywhere. And I'm like, okay, yeah, we can speak to that. We can speak to various communities, most of which don't have money. So of course, what do they wanna do is they wanna escape. And so yes, mess is a big problem all around the US. However, like you spoke earlier, the natives never had that in their way of being. They were ones with the earth. Their medicine was the earth. And so now when you're looking at numbers of around 70% of the youth on the Pine Ridge Reservation alone are meth addicts. And you're looking at these young women who are being given the drug to then have a death to whomever it is that they're getting this drug from and then they're being sex trafficked and nobody's really talking about it. And there isn't any proper support, like community support. They do have various people trying to support the drug, the issue with the drugs to get the rehabilitation. However, it's three hour drive north of the reservation to be able to be in a rehabilitation center. So the health system is desperately underfunded. And so as much as the native peoples and the communities are resilient, they're fighting a spirit. And one of the wonderful women who's in the film, Jules Richardson, who's Mothers Against Mass Alliance, she runs out of her tiny little home in Pine Ridge and, you know, an awareness program and trying to support the young children. She's picking up three-year-olds and four-year-olds, little kids walking on the streets in the middle of the night. - Oh, wow. - And she has no funding because she says even when that started about five years ago when the meth came in onto the reservation, the tribal government knew nothing about it nor knew how to support it. So she took it into her own hands to try and support her community. And I just spoke with her this morning and she thinks she has COVID. She's getting close with it. And she's so now, you know, she's just a mess. And I mean, she cried this morning on the phone to me and she said to the people that basically are trying to help. It's the community health representatives of the tribal government. And they're, you know, you have to call in and say, I think I'm sick. They check back to see how sick you are. And if you are sick enough, they may send someone else to test you. However, they're not testing everybody 'cause yet again, they don't have the funding nor enough tests to protect these people. - Wow, wow. And so that, you know, you think about, you know, the Navajo Nation going through the same kind of thing as well. So here's a growing issue. And at the same time, when you say about, you know, they're not having help in regards to rehabilitation, it's also when I look at the education side of things that it didn't seem like it's almost like an uphill battle but a worthwhile battle to even teach the youth of their traditions and who they are in their language. 'Cause that's one thing we've found that a lot of the different tribes are actually trying to document their language because their language is slowly disappearing and even working together between tribes to document it. Yeah, that's a really big thing for the youth. I think 10 years ago, 20,000 people spoke the language. And now as of last year, there's 2,000 people that speak the language. So the thing that I heard prior to going, well, speaking to the language and their ceremony and their medicine, right? These people who are so rich in their culture that the language holds a resonance that is a medicine, that the actual speaking of their language actually has a healing component to it and they are people of their word. So every time they would open their mouths, what they said was truth. And so, of course, they speak of the governments promising them many things with all of the treaties and of course, over the years, they've just broken all the treaties. It's such a hard thing to witness when you know these people really come from a very connected to the earth and connected to truth, connected to Mother Earth in a way that would hold her in balance through their ceremony and that yet it was illegal for them to actually practice their ceremony until 1978. So in my lifetime, to be who they truly are. And so now there is the continuum of the genocide through putting them in prison, through, of course, the drug issues, through the alcoholism and then the lack of funding. You know, they don't even have a transport system on the reservation. And we're looking at 3500 square miles with dotted tin cans. You know, they live in these trailers that most don't have electricity, most don't have running water, and most don't have a car. So how do they even get to a treatment center? They have to, you know, hope that a relative will come pick them up and then it's the gas money 'cause they're driving for an hour and a half just to get across the reservation to go to the hospital. So the whole community is really not taken care of in any way whatsoever. And of course, with what's going on, you know, the government is speaking, the US government is speaking to getting everything back on track. And nobody's really speaking to how they're supporting these types of communities. And of course, it's bringing up all that ancient trauma of how many of the last ones to be cared for. So they're going through that. And I did someone posted a cartoon of one of the, you know, 'cause right now all the reservations are basically put their own stopping on traffic from coming in so they can protect their people. And the federal government is saying put down the boundary, you've got to let people come through. And there's a cartoon of, you know, a US governor handing out blankets at the border. - Oh my gosh, you know, the joke on, you know, we're gonna give you our disease 'cause that's of course how they managed to spread a lot of the chickenpox and the various diseases back in the day which killed all these native peoples because they had no resilience because they didn't know that. They were connected in a very different way. So it's history repeating itself in many ways for a lot of these people. And, you know, rightly so, they're trying to protect themselves. - And the cycle too, in regards to, you know, the abuse, you know, the abuse women are going through. There was a story in there where, you know, the young girl running through the snow to get help for her mom. When the dad, you know, abusing, you know, the mom and then went after the sons and then she went running off and ended up with her feet amputated. I mean, and to get help, running for help. And, you know, when you think about how vast the reservation is, like you were saying, you know, that 3,000 square miles, that fear, and that is going to, that cycle keeps going, you know. It's hard to forget those kinds of things. It just keeps turning the trauma from, you know, ancient times to continuing forward, no matter whether it's physical abuse from a loved one or abuse through the government or any of it or a pandemic, it just seems that that's part of it. It's the same kind of negative cycle that's hitting. And yet at the same time, we look at how, you know, white folks are here going, hey, you know, we all want to be Indian and have that, you know, there's this weird thing too. It's cool to be Indian and, you know what I'm talking about? It's like, right, you know, it, you know, we speak of that a lot. Actually, I was speaking with son Rose Einshell, who's one of the schoolteachers in the film, Women of the White Buffalo, who is so incredibly smart and so informative in the film. She's just brilliant and she has her sense of humor. And the natives have a beautiful sense of humor, you know. They are so resilient and they are so passionate about who they really are. And I think the big piece with the film to me was, you know, people are like, why did you make this film? And I said, because I want people to be self-aware. Like even by watching this film, they have a better understanding of the native peoples and their history. They can join that conversation. The other piece is their own self-awareness and their relationship to the earth. Because these people have continued to connect to the earth. They still have their ceremony. They have their thunderances. And this is what son Rose was sharing with me, is that the DNA of the native peoples has a much deeper connection to mother earth. They're far more sensitive. Unlike a lot of other cultures, people, the, you know, they're sort of, I will say, the white man, you know, as he came over, we're all indigenous. There's no separateness from any of us. Right. However, the bigger pieces, the remembering of her. And I do believe that when you watch the film, the thing that they keep speaking to is remember who you are. And that's what my prayer is by the film. It's not this big piece of hope of, you know, do this and this will happen. There's no magic button. It's the self-awareness, I think, of the totality of humanity. And I believe that the burden on the native peoples is much greater because they're seeing how humanity have totally disconnected themselves from the truth of who we really are. And I know they hold a greater responsibility to wake those people up too. And I really pray that the film will gift the people, because there's many that still don't know, you know, about the realities on these, on these reservations. And just the understanding of indigenous cultures, period, that it would be so wonderful if the little thing that I can bring into the world with this film are these magnificent voices of these eight women who hold such tremendous information and that we can wake up and start looking at our own footprints. Well, it's very easy and convenient to believe the story of when we subjugated other people, that we were doing it for their own good. We were doing it to civilize them. We were doing it to educate. We were doing it to bring them into religion. You know, and so this was all done for their own good, except for the fact when you really delve into it, somehow their land disappeared with it. That's right. And their culture and their language. All of that, for sure. I mean, for me to think about it. And yeah, cutting of their hair, I mean, it's heartbreaking. It's, you know, having the boarding school system set up so that, like you said, they could be trained out of their way, you know, to be segregated from their truth, not to speak their language. And yes, it was a religious act, but it was bigger than that. It was, you know, I think the fear, right, of the unknown. So you have all these European settlers showing up and they would witness these ceremonies that these natives would show, you know, of who they are. And in the fear of the unknown, they wanted to kill it. Because they didn't feel that they had a power over them if more people still maintained their practice on a regular basis or a daily basis. It's like, yeah, you see a snake and the immediate reaction is kill it, right? And you don't think about why that snake is there, how the snake helps the soil through aeration tunnels and how that snake may kill another snake, like a rattler, you know, it's so funny because, like, even just that, I'll post a photo of a snake and everybody's kill it. Like, what do you mean to kill it? But that's that immediate fear, you know, there's people like if they see a snake or rattlesnake, they'll hit it with their car. And I'm like, this is a living being. And I've actually been on that fear side and done stuff to understand and know exactly how far you'll go on that. And there's fear when the way to be attacked or something, oh, I don't know. - That's right. - But I do that. It's a very interesting thing because I think we're still in that. Even the way government, I'm not gonna get in politics, but. - Oh, sure, yeah. - No, but there's still, we're still being tauted and controlled through fear, I feel. Like, I'm found globally because, again, we're all connected. And I think that's one of the messages that we're very, very strong for each documentary is that we are all connected. You know, if the Lakota women are not healthy and happy, neither are we really. - That's right. - We're not. - That's right. - And that's right. - That's a strong message for the Me Too movement too. I mean, look how far we've come so far ahead as women, but so we're still so far behind. - That's right. I mean, to speak to the idea of us all being connected to the winged ones, to the forelegged ones, the creepy crawlers, you know, and to one another, of course, it's like, this is so interesting. Someone mentioned at the other day, they said, you know, it's so interesting, we're all being put into quarantine. And yet, all the parks are closed, the national forest, the national parks are also closed. And so we're not allowed into nature, right? The most healing thing we have on this planet is her, yet Walmart is open. So you can still go buy more of your crap, which you probably don't even really need. I'm all panicking about toilet paper. And it's like, but why are we not allowed into nature? Why are we not allowed to be around the thing, the very essence of who we really are, which is the connection to her? - And you said Walmart, we were talking about this exact thing last night, you know, here, sorry, I don't want to name it. - No, no, no, no, I'm just go for it, man. Go for it. - Exactly, go for it. - The Walmart thing, how come they get to be open, but the small stores, mom and pop stores, are not allowed to be. - They're all closed, they're all closed, yeah. And now it's speaking to, you know, 33 million people being unemployed. And of course, you know, going back to it, it's like our focus is on the economy. And then they've just given, you know, again, I don't want to name names or do data or speak to big numbers, so I'll probably get it wrong. But just the things that I'm reading, it's like $10 million here and $20 million there. Let's, you know, bail these people out. And then I speak to my relatives on the reservations and they can't even get food. It doesn't make sense to me. So these are our first people. If these are the people that brought the people that showed up to land on this great continent. And these people showed them how to survive. And yes, there is historical fighting between the nations and yes, we're not all perfect. I understand that, you know, the natives weren't or sitting there, you know, or peace and love. They were in survival mode amongst one another. Yet their basis of understanding was that Mother Earth was to be treated with the utmost respect. And they never hunted more than they needed. And if we had continued with that sovereignty, right, that sovereignty to the land and living off the land, the, you know, the great American way, we wouldn't be in the trouble that we're in right now. We wouldn't be running into, you know, the warm-ups or the whole foods, wherever it is that people go and buy their foods. Any, any different, you know, place to be able to purchase or you need to eat and all the shells are empty because everybody's so panicked. And so they're so selfish in their way of some of the videos that I saw people fighting over things. Like, and they've got cuts filled with stuff. And somebody's like, can I just have one of those? Like just that mentality, it's all about me, me, I, I, when the natives were all about the family, the tribe, the greater collective. And so at the end of the film, I speak to Nancy, I believe you even saw it, was the, the great prophecy by a sitting bull was sitting down, smoking the peace pipe with crazy horse and crazy horse was said to have spoken the words that one day there will be a time when there is great suffering on the planet. And it'll be the white man that'll come to the red man and say, show us. Remind us because they will have forgotten. And I just, somebody else posted something the other day and I put it up on my Facebook and I remember seeing this, it's another elder, he's a wise man, elder, native man that speaks to the prophecies that America, by the natives with, the natives would see America come and go because people have forgotten our way. And I, and I believe that is that, that time is now like it, this is the beginning of so much. And all I can say is when I speak to my relatives, they stand in awe and they really, they cannot believe that they are still the last to be recognized, they're still the last to be cared about. And they're still the last to be honored because America has not made their peace with them and apologized and really recognized what they've done to them. - Including like the Dakota's access pipeline, I'm still going on that and it was interesting because one of the, you know, we talked about this to the other day that at the end of the day though, look at the biggest grouping of indigenous people from around the world came together over that. And that really showed something and that's why I say this is global, it's American, but it's global. And at the same time, here we are threatening mother earth and water. And it's happening all the time. I mean like Chaco up, you know, Chaco, oh, we're going to frack that area. And it's like a ceremonial site, you know, it's like this is important history and it's connected to all of us and to nature. And then, oh, it's fine and now it's back on again. And it seems like they're targeting areas that should be left alone and it's a continual battle. And it is like the pushing out. But I also think it's the pushing out of, you know, there is this, we are connected. Let me just put it at that because yeah, it's true. - It's definitely going to have an effect. - Yeah, we really have to look at why, you know, the continuation of drilling for gas and oil and fracking when we know how bad it is, we know it's ruining the land, we know it's ruining our waterways with shallow people. That's what you drink on a daily basis. It's going to kill you at some point. Why we don't stop it and we don't even need it. We have gas and oil reserves in this country. We have them around the world. We really don't need it. So then the excuse becomes jobs. Well, then look at the jobs. Percent of the people working are on minimum wage and the top five, six percent are making all the money. So really until we get fair with it, it should stop. - Yeah, I agree that definitely balance, balance is such a big word at the moment. I just keep hearing she, Mother Earth, wants to be back in balance and she is so forgiving. And she is here to really provide the medicine to heal all of us if we would just stop and listen. And I speak into some rows and it's in the film, we speak about the water, you know, being sacred, you know, water is life. And she speaks of it being illegal to have your own well on the reservation. - I know. - And their, - Wow. - Electricity factors are three times as high as the normal bill because of the way they have to do the run the lines or whatever. - That's so disgusting. - So we know, she said, who's, she says it in the film, she goes, who is trying to keep us from thriving? Who is it in power trying to continue the suppression of our people? Who is it in power that doesn't care about us? Like it doesn't even make sense, she said. She said she was half of it doesn't even make sense to me. Like she can't even wrap her head around it, like why? And it's of course it goes back to money and money equals power. And so until that part of humanity's awakening shift where we cannot eat our money and when all the land is dying and all the animals are gone and we're talking about hundreds of species of animals are going at rings that are unfathomable. I think the third of our bird population has died. So the when is the wake up? When we realized we have nothing left? I mean when is the wake up? So there's a lot, and someone said to me the other day they saw the film, they were so deeply moved, they were in tears and they're like, how can I help? How can we help? - Yeah, exactly. - And I said, we need to wake up. If you can watch this film and it ignites a part of you that goes, who is my local tribe? What land am I sitting on? This turtle island, who is my native tribe near me that needs my support? What does that look like? Is it my time? Is it just joining the conversation? Is it a financial thing? Like it doesn't always have to be money. Awareness is so big to come in and help the children, to come in and support the communities and not separate yourself from them over there, those native people, those indigenous people, because as far as I'm concerned, we continue to kill the indigenous spirit. And Mother Earth is the only thing, really, to me, that needs to be loved. And as we continue to stop that loving communication with the indigenous people, they hold the wisdom of Mother Earth. So we're killing ourselves. Humanity will not survive. - I want to tell everybody to be able to wake up. - I think it absolutely is. And I want people to go to your website, womenofthewhitebuffalo.com. And there's a good story about the whole name. It's a, yeah, you've got to watch the documentary. So, the fundraiser, tell everybody how that works. - Yeah, basically, I did something on Facebook and in my name, I decided that I'm going to basically get this out myself. I'm going to self distribute the film, get it up on the website to have it available on womenofthewhitebuffalo.com. And then suddenly, I realized how expensive it was. And I have a beautiful team of people. And they're just like, you know, just, this is, you know, again, the irony. I have a lot of vintage film in the film, speaking to how it was in the boarding schools and what it was like as a young native back in the day. And they're owned by a lot of people who want to charge me $4,000 for 30 seconds of usage. And photographs that I'm using in the film to document the truth of what's happening can be from anything from $100 to $600 for the usage of one photo. So, in doing the maths, I think the $10,000 that I was asking for was a way under the realities of my needs. And I'm just praying that I will get a couple of donors that want to privately donate. And it will be a tax write off, you know, tax free donation through the foundation, which is coachtoedified.org. They are basically helping with all the funding 'cause the entire film was made with donations. I don't know anybody, anything. Nobody invested in the natives. This is a pure love that I'm so passionate about. And having spent so much time with these women, it is only rights that they are heard. So at the moment, if there's anyone that wants to donate and they, you know, feel it in their sort of heart to really right the wrongs that so many of these big companies have done to these people and we can get this message out that people can really hear their stories. You can donate through the website. There is a PayPal button and or you can email me directly. Again, you can email through the website and we can work out how that will be a tax deductible donation to help me get this on that. - Hopefully in the next couple of months will be the idea. - Right, on and big toast to all who do and have supported this. - Yeah. - So women of the white buffalo.com. So everyone go there and we're going to play a theme song which was, it was written by your dad, right? It's John Anderson. - Yeah, he co-wrote it with Jenny Musketch who did the entire score of the film. Absolutely beautifully done. And then my dad who has been working with indigenous stories and has been writing music with the indigenous peoples with Native American people for 30, 40 years, even. So when I called him and said, "Dad, could you do a song?" He said, "Oh, I already have it. "He was so thrilled and he's been following the journey. "He's watched the film in his many incarnations "and every time he said he's cried." And he said, "It is time that these people walk amongst us "and that we see that they really are." - Mm-hmm. - I love that. And before you go, it is champagne sundaes and this has got nothing to do. It's not about alcohol, it's between water. It just is really about looking at, there are all these hardships, what we've talked about. And yet through hardships also, there's always beauty somewhere, there's always something positive. So what would you like to toast to today? What are you feeling grateful and positive for? - Gosh, I have to say, firstly, thank you to you both. So I tell you both for giving my voice a platform and the voices of all these women a platform. And I wanna toast all the women that showed up and wanted to speak and were brave enough to share their stories. I'm deeply indebted to them because to stand up and speak your truth in a time like this when you've had years and years of being told to not speak is a very powerful testament to the time that we're in. So I toast these women, they're quite fantastic and it's an important time to hear their voices. So they're powerful. - I know, I'm like, oh my gosh, you'd be safe. (laughing) They're talking on women, they're standing strong, so I toast alongside with you. So thank you so much for doing the documentary, your art and for the integrity that you have and have for the people too. - And Mother Nature, she's rock. - Yes. - Thank you, and the song you're gonna play is with Delastina Chief Eagle, singing with my father. And Delastina is also in the film, one of the powerful women that speak to the stories. So I'm very, I'm just so honored to have you play it for the first time. This is the first time anyone's gonna hear it. - Awesome. - In the world, so thank you. - Thank you, we're honored. You take care and be well as you go through the next space of this journey of getting it out there. Here it is. - Thank you, ladies. - The white buffalo. - Thank you. - Take care. - Thank you. ♪ Be the sun, be the sky, be the river ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Be the world of the world of the First Nations ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Be the sun, be the sky, be the river ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ From the rivers of everlasting truth ♪ ♪ Away away away away ♪ ♪ Hearing the truth that is inside of you ♪ Away away away away, hearing the truth that is inside of you. Away away away away away, hearing the truth. Away away away away away away, hear the sound, hear the sky, hear the river away away away. Away away away away away away away, hear the sound, hear the sound of the truth that is calling us, the sound of the lost and the found. Away away away away away away away, hear the sound, hear the sound, hear the sound, hear the sound, hear the sound. Away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away away, the future is setting down. (chimes) (eerie music)
