Lisa Johnson:
Journey to Wellness in Indian country is made possible by the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus, educating medical students, dedicated to serving rural Minnesota and American Indian, Alaska native communities. Melissa Walls, Dr. Melissa Walls from the UMD campus joins us this morning on the line to talk a little bit about a film called Dodging Bullets, and she’s had quite an involvement in the film from its inception. We’ll welcome her this morning. Hi Melissa. Good to have you with us.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
Hi Lisa. Good morning.
Lisa Johnson:
So Native American heritage month in November and Dodging Bullets was screened on campus last week, a film that folks it sounds like should try to track down and see. You were involved in the making of this film from the beginning. Can you talk a little bit about why first of all, and then what your involvement consisted of?
Dr. Melissa Walls:
Sure. Yeah. So this is a new documentary it’s actually not publicly released yet. It was a special showing here at UMD. And luckily we had a screening in the springtime at the film festival as well, but you’re right, I was contacted pretty early in the making of the documentary. It was sort of a professor friend of a professor found her way to myself and to another professor who had been on campus here and said, “Hey, there’s filmmakers doing a documentary about historical trauma”, which is one of the areas of scholarship that my team is involved in. And they want to interview some experts in the field. And really that’s all I knew about it at that point.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
And so this was, oh my gosh, five, six years ago, they interviewed us down at AICHO, which had just opened in downtown Duluth, the American Indian housing authority organization. And we hadn’t heard anything for quite a few years. And then all of a sudden I heard from the director of Bob Trench and he said, “Hey, we’re ready to release.” And what they ended up with is a really beautiful work, beautiful cinematography, beautiful storytelling. And I was incredibly impressed to see where it landed.
Lisa Johnson:
We will ask you, obviously when the general public might have an opportunity to see the documentary. As a native person, obviously you were impressed with its beauty. You knew something about it because you were obviously a part of it, as you sat in a group of native folks watching the documentary what was that like? How were people reacting?
Dr. Melissa Walls:
Well, both times it’s been groups of mixed company. So some native folks, some non-native folks, people of color. And I do sort of watch the room. So twice I’ve been in screenings and everything from just deep attention to what they’re seeing to tears. Actually, the first screening, my grandmother, my mother, and my father and my son and my husband were all in the room, and I was watching them. Some of it was pride on my grandma’s part to see her granddaughter on screen, but it’s very moving. You can’t help but be moved when art comes into this kind of storytelling. And I made a joke after the first screening that I’ve spent the last 15 years writing extensively about this topic and not one piece of writing could ever get the reaction that the film gets, because it just touches something else in people when you can see it in these stories.
Lisa Johnson:
One of the common reactions to the idea of historical trauma, the idea that things that happened decades, or even a hundred or longer ago can still be affecting people now in this day and age is met with skepticism by a certain group of people.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
Yes.
Lisa Johnson:
Do you think that if they were to see this film, that they would suddenly get it, that having people explain it to them again, perhaps with just maybe words, having people try to explain it to them with words that maybe the film could reach them in a way that the words haven’t been able to.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
I do think, as I said I’ve written about this a lot. I lecture on this topic a lot. I’m married to a non-native person and talk to him about this a lot. And it wasn’t until he saw the film that he said, “I had a light bulb moment watching that” about the sports mascot issue and how that can be harmful and how that is discriminatory. And he said it was just in that sequence that it hit me. And I was, first of all, well why didn’t, you listen to me? Joking but-
Lisa Johnson:
Well, of course, but you know that family never listens to family.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
Exactly. Yeah. So I saw this firsthand. The other thing is, what I like about the film is that it does lay out this fact that historical trauma does have historical roots, but the processes that are in place and the impacts are intergenerational and even contemporary. And so it’s not a thing of the past, although it started in the past, it’s really this collection of outcomes related to those historical processes.
Lisa Johnson:
And it’s maybe a way of unpacking it a little bit and maybe laying out some of the specifics in a way that would be easier. Sometimes it feels like you open the topic up with somebody and you can just sort of see or feel them shut down. They’re not interested. They don’t get it. They got over whatever happened to them in half an hour and by golly, everybody else ought to be able to just pick up and move on.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
Yeah. And those very issues are confronted head-on and the film, those topics are brought up. Those scapegoats I guess, are discussed. And so you really get to watch- the other thing is there are survivors of boarding school, survivors of residential school abuse, survivors of relocation, interviewed in the film. And so it’s really hard to just- I can stand before you and lecture on this topic and talk about what my great-grandfather experienced, what my uncles experienced, what I experienced, but I’m not a boarding school survivor. So to see them talk about what happened and what they lived through, it’s hard for a person to deny consequences.
Lisa Johnson:
In addition, I think it really hits home, particularly where the boarding schools are concerned that people were still in boarding schools in the seventies.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
Right.
Lisa Johnson:
And this is not something that was done away with at the turn of the century. This is something that people you know may have actually experienced or older siblings or their parents. So do you know when folks are going to have the opportunity perhaps to see the film? And maybe invite some people that they know that might be skeptics to come and see it this evening and then I’ll never mention it again, come to the movie with me tonight.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
So if you go to the website for the film, which is DodgingBullets.org, I think, but you can Google Dodging Bullets film and you’ll find it. Bob Trench, the director lists all of the screenings and he’s still doing the documentary circuit film festival circuits. He told me the last we spoke it might be another year before it’s formally released, but there are requests for showings. That’s exactly how actually I need to credit our association of Native American medical students for screening it at UNB, he worked with them to get it to our campus. So you can look at trailers there. You can see the schedule and you can get updates on when it will be released.
Lisa Johnson:
We’ll get a link set up so it’ll be easy for folks to find that information. Melissa, thanks so much for joining against us morning.
Dr. Melissa Walls:
Well, you’re welcome, stay warm.
Lisa Johnson:
You too. Dr. Melissa Walls, our guest this morning on Journey to Wellness in Indian Country. She was interviewed for the documentary about historical trauma called Dodging Bullets. And as I mentioned, we will get a link set up so it will be easy for folks to find more information about that film and perhaps even request a showing. Today’s Journey to Wellness in Indian Country is made possible by the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus, a national leader in improving health care, access and outcomes in rural Minnesota and American Indian, Alaskan, Native communities.