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Forgotten Iowa Story to be Told in New Documentary
The critically-acclaimed producers of the documentary feature film Villisca: Living with a Mystery are poised to turn their lens on another important, enduring and fascinating Iowa story. Through their fiscal sponsor, Native Languages of the Americas in St. Paul Minn., Humanities Iowa recently awarded Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films a major grant to begin production on a new historical documentary entitled Lost Nation: the Ioway.
Lost Nation tells the nearly forgotten story of some of the first inhabitants of Iowa. From their ancestors known as the Oneota to their present-day locations on reservations, the film will explore how the small tribe was caught between colonizers, and by virtue of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, they were gradually pushed from their ancestral home just before the state of Iowa was named after them. The filmmakers have the support and cooperation of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska in White Cloud, Kansas and the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma in Perkins, Okla.
The Rundles began shooting on the 4th of July in Montgomery County, just north of Villisca, where Mahaska was murdered. The 22-day shooting schedule for the first phase of the project includes interviews with Ioway tribal elders and members, Native scholars, archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists and historic site documentation in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The Rundles are both former Iowa residents. Tammy is from Waterloo and Kelly was born in Eau Claire, Wis., and grew up in the Quad Cities. They are also developing another Native American-themed documentary feature film called Blackhawk: Civil Warrior.
