The Lakota Daughters – Q&A

Written By Kassel Franco Garibay

IMAGEN AND FILM DIRECTOR, VICTORIA KUPCHINETSKY RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS RAISED BY AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS DURING THE POPULATION COUNCIL FILM SCREENING AND PANEL DISCUSSION OF “THE LAKOTA DAUGHTERS,” MARCH 1, 2021

Beth Weisberg:  How can we help from afar? This film was moving & inspiring.

IMAGEN: There are many ways to help from afar.

  1. Support IMAGEN by donating directly to IMAGEN here.

  2. Visit out March pop-up shop here, all profits go to IMAGEN and support our network. 

  3. You can share The Lakota Daughters with your friends and family.

  4. You can sign up for our newsletter

  5. You can visit our webpage for further information about our work

  6. Follow us on social media: Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Joellen Lambiotte: Is IMAGEN a project of the Population Council or is it an independent registered 501 c 3? 

IMAGEN: IMAGEN is currently a project of the Population Council, led by Dr. Kelly Hallman (enrolled Cherokee Nation tribal citizen) and advised by seven Native American women from across Indian Country.

Marjorie Macieira: How will the young women be involved in future program design and accountability?

IMAGEN: Girl Societies are designed to be responsive to the needs and desires of the girls in their communities – IMAGEN doesn’t have a set curriculum but rather a set of tools and resources that are designed to help women set up and run groups that address the particular needs of the girls in their communities. One of the most effective tools is IMAGEN’s resiliency skills challenge - an interactive planning tool that allows community members, program planners, and the girls themselves to identify what they need and want their programs to address.

Jenny Godley: Does Imagen do work in Canada, too?

IMAGEN: We currently don’t have any partners in Canada at this time, but we are eager to find and partner with groups in Canada. Please tell them about our work and we’ll be happy to invite them to become members of the IMAGEN Circle, our biweekly online gathering of IMAGEN Girl Society mentors.

Joellen Lambiotte:  Where does IMAGEN hope to be five years from now?

IMAGEN: IMAGEN hopes to have a saturation of Girl Societies throughout Indian Country in 5 years – with partners in rural and urban communities. This density of Girl Societies will achieve many of IMAGEN’s core values of creating collective mentored female spaces that build networks, skills and strengthen intergeneration cultural knowledge and matrilineal traditions.  Girl Societies will act as a safety net, protecting indigenous girls from the current staggering rates of murdered and missing indigenous women while building community, providing tools and strengthening their resilience. 

Natacha Weiss: Do you work with other native Indian communities?

IMAGEN: We work with many other groups in Indian Country – currently we are working in 45 communities in 15 states. You can see all the locations on this map.

Miriam Temin: So wonderful and moving. Congratulations! I feel like this should be required viewing for all US residents. Will it be publicly available following this incredible launch event?  How can we help spread the word? 

IMAGEN: “The Lakota Daughters” is available free and online here, and has been accepted into 5 film festivals (Women’s Voices Now, American Documentary and Animation Film Festival, Black Hills Film Festival, Sebastopol Film Festival, and Kansas City Film Festival). You can share the word about the film and the IMAGEN project by using the photos in this article . Our social media and other communications/resource links are also listed below. 

If you wish to discuss screenings of the documentary please contact either Victoria Kupchinetsky via Facebook Messenger, or the IMAGEN Team.

Mar Aguilar: How long did it take to film the whole movie? What was the reaction of the community in having the movie portray them closely?

IMAGEN: Lakota Daughters was filmed from October 2019 through February 2020 and editing was completed in August of 2020.  Besides filming, there was preparation/preproduction which started in November of 2019, and the editing of the film after we came back from South Dakota in March of 2020 which took several months.

Victoria: The community response has been very positive, and we hope to screen the film on Pine Ridge Reservation once COVID-19 is more under control, for the entire community to view it together as a large inter-connected family of relatives. Some people told me that they believe the film was made with respect and integrity  – and that is the biggest compliment I could ever receive.

Mar Aguilar: Are you planning to follow up on the girls portrayed in the film and see if their vision can come true? How can we help to support them to reach that dream?

IMAGEN: The girls in the film are all part of IMAGEN Girl Societies and receiving support from the local Native female adult mentor.  The ways in which you can help support the girls are listed above.

Sommer Schauer: Beautiful. I hope there’ll be a sequel to follow these girls and women?

IMAGEN and Victoria: We certainly hope there will be. 

Marjorie Macieira:  I appreciated hearing your context Victoria - thank you for your care for the native peoples and young women.  If there is a follow-up film, it would be interesting to hear from native women from other US native peoples/groups, their insights on comparisons and contrasts of their journeys vis a vis the Lakota young women.  What made a difference in their lives (such as Aimee's story of her upbringing and life choices)?

Victoria: It’s a great point, Marjorie. It’s important to know our circumstances, and where we come from. When I was much younger and way less wise, I thought that a person’s achievements in life could be judged (if they could be judged at all) by where the person has arrived. But now I know – it’s the journey that really counts. If you come from a place with very few opportunities – and you get a master’s degree in social work, and come back to your roots to help the community, create a big loving family, and remain beautiful, compassionate, understanding, in spite of all the heartbreak and pain you’ve seen around you – that’s an incredible human achievement. And that’s Aimee’s story and the story of so many people on Pine Ridge Reservation.

Marjorie Macieira: Any chance the girls can be involved in the actual making any future movies?

IMAGEN: We have connected the girls with various film-making training opportunities, such as VisionMaker media. 

Victoria: This is an excellent point, Marjorie, and it got me thinking…We might try to find a way to provide some of those girls with compact video cameras, so that they could continue documenting their own lives and the lives of their community. That might offer them a certain sense of freedom in creating their own lives’ stories. And it might offer a deeper understanding of the circumstances, the past and the present, to the outside world.

Marjorie Macieira: Would VOA really be willing to accept the realities of how the US government has destroyed Indian communities around this country.  WSU has stolen their land continuously.

IMAGEN: We will need to confer with VOA management for a response. Please check the IMAGEN website toward the end of March 2021. 

Kassel Franco Garibay
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