Filmmaker Statement

I first read about the political group Red Nation in an article about police and vigilante violence against Native Americans, and the group’s political organising around these issues in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I became interested in the ways in which Red Nation’s political work often highlighted the intersections of environmental and land ownership questions, with racism. There is a structural context to anti-Indigenous racism in the Americas, related to land. With these topics in mind, I contacted Red Nation to see if they would be open to filming, and what kind of project they thought should be made. Justine, my film’s protagonist, embraced the idea and made it clear that no film could be made about Indigenous politics in the Southwest without broadening the voices that were heard. And in order to tell the story, you had to begin with the land, and so we decided on a road trip movie structured around their podcast.