Author: Mollianne Cameron

Lakota Girls will screen in Oklahoma in April!

Bare Bones Film Festival Website

Indiana Daily Student 

IDS
IU alumna releases film “Lakota Girls”
By Sanya Ali
Published 02/15/17 8:31pm
Updated 02/16/17 12:04pm

An IU alumna will soon offer a viewing of her first independent feature film, a movie revolving around race relations and told through the perspectives of children.

“Lakota Girls,” a film co-produced by Molli Elliot Cameron and her husband, Russell, will be shown at 6:30 p.m. March 23 at Keystone Arts Theater. The film has already been released to the public but has yet to be screened in Indiana.

Molli, also the director and writer for the film, graduated from IU in 1986 with a degree in business. She worked as a business owner in Indianapolis for years but said she always had the idea for this film in the back of her head.

The script is based on the story of her great-grandmother, a white teacher who moved to South Dakota with her two sisters and married a Lakota man.

“My great-grandma went to South Dakota and married a Native American, which was very unusual at the time,” Molli said. “I was so interested in, first of all, what made my great-grandma leave Indiana and go to South Dakota 100 years ago, and what kind of woman was my great grandma that she would marry a Native American knowing that that would be socially 
difficult for both of them.”

The film has already been awarded the People’s Choice Award at the Black Hills Film Festival in South Dakota and has been accepted into film festivals across the United States and Europe.

Alexa Raye, Jessica Froelich and Carrie Barnthouse, professional actresses from Indiana, played the sisters in the film. The goal was that all the Native American characters would be portrayed accurately by members of the Lakota, which they were able to do with the help of both professional actors and members of the tribe in South Dakota, Molli said.

The family-friendly film was completed with the help of more than 100 people, including the 20 Lakota Native American actors. The co-leads in the roles of the child narrators were Tika Looking Horse and Clara, Molli’s daughter. The majority of filming took place in the Black Hills and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

“I wanted all the native actors to be local actors, which makes it difficult because there are a few known actors who are Lakota,” Molli said. “I didn’t want to have actors who weren’t Lakota because the whole story is about 
Lakota.”

To save money during filming, Molli said she lived with her mother-in-law in South Dakota and invited the Native American members of the cast and crew to stay with the family.

“That was a pretty interesting experience because, culturally, they are still different than the typical white family focused on what belongs to them versus sharing,” Molli said. “I think it was good for my children to experience that. What I had read and experienced came true with our interactions with them.”

Molli said the experience of her first project being an indie film gave her the opportunity to experience a collaborative filmmaking environment, which differed from the Hollywood norm of divided production structure.

“It’s nice to go through the whole process, have the script reading, discuss what we’re going to do and then to actually be there with the equipment and have them saying the lines,” Molli said. “The first day we shot, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re real. They’re real and talking and saying the lines.’”

South Dakota on Film
by Brian Gevik on Jan 31, 2017

This “Images of the Past” documentary looks at film history and how South Dakota stories, locations, and people have been featured on film since the first few frames of the 1890s through “Dances With Wolves” to the present day.

Lakota Girls is one of the featured films with an interview with Director Molli Cameron.

To view: South Dakota on Film

We will be screening Lakota Girls to the public at Keystone Art Landmark Theatre in Indy on Thursday, March 23rd from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.  Tickets are available on-line through this link Purchase Movie Tickets, our Facebook page, and Twitter page. If this showing sells out, we will schedule another one at the same location. We hope you will come see our first feature film and first script. Lakota Girls is a People’s Choice Award Winner and was just accepted our sixth film festival. For questions, you may reach us at chocolateeyesproductions@gmail.com.

“Only in Indiana” News Story

Lakota Girls 60 Second Trailer

Buy tickets for Hollywood Screening

Lakota Girls will screen in Hollywood in October. We are thrilled! If you are in the area, come see us and our family-friendly film.

South Dakota PBS Video

International Monthly Film Festival

Winners

OFFICIAL SELECTION-International Monthly Film Festival-2016

Official Selection – August 2016

HOPE – Jonathan Castro (United States)
THE PERFECT DAY – Ignacio Redondo (Spain)
Doors – Paco Arasanz (Spain)
Forbidden Truth – Ash Wells (United Kingdom)
Call for members! – Kaihei Hase (Japan)
Limerence – Arturo Aranda (Mexico)
Lakota Girls – Mollianne Cameron (United States)
Again. – Yoni Azulay (United States)
The Girl with the Flute – Dieter Grohmann (Belgium)
The Perfect Martini-O – Matthew Colby (United States)
Elijah’s Ashes – Ryan Barton-Grimley (United States)
Farewell – Urs Kälin (Switzerland)
A Different Set of Cards – Falko Jakobs (Germany)
Nympho’s Diary – Savvas Christou (United States)
Agrinoui – Alexis Chaviaras (Cyprus)
HeavenKid: Time-Space Door – Derrick Wu (Taiwan)
Arkhe – Batuhan Köksal (Turkey)
RunCatRun – Hao Li (United States)
For You – Yajun Shi (United States)
One World – Different People – Oliver Langewitz (Germany)
Nourhane, a child’s dream – May Kassem (Lebanon)
Shattered Families: The Collapse of America’s Mental Health System – Stephen Seager (United States)
Seattle Death Trains – Gene Bernofsky (United States)
These Fragments – Stephen Linstead (United Kingdom)
Miss Attinghausen – Vasco Estermann (Switzerland)
Black Rat – Perry Lam (Australia)
Curanderismo – Sam W. McFadden (United Kingdom)
Roger D’Astous – Etienne Desrosiers (Canada)
Mary Boyle: The Untold Story – Gemma O’Doherty (Republic of Ireland)
Ridden by Nature – Kathi von Koerber (United States)
Follow Me – Dieter Grohmann (Belgium)
Asperger’s Syndrome – Nicholas Bayfield (United Kingdom)
Losing Landscapes Part 1 – Chelsey Hice (United States)
Pebbles – Matt JR Hurley (United Kingdom)
Little Party Queen – Etienne Fu-Le Saulnier (France)
Misbehave – Pierre-Joseph Secondi (France)
The Wait – Fabio Teriaca (Italy)
The NiDao – FUBU (China)
Scraps – Dor Cohen (New Zealand)
The Breath – Leah Rifkin (Canada)
Element 186 – Bradley Page (United Kingdom)
Collapse – NT Bullock (United States)
Fall in Spring – Manisha Gupta (India)
Pendragon – Steven McGraw (United States)
Silver Screens – Ricardo Bouyett (United States)
My Best Friend – Ümit Sakalli (Turkey)