Two days after Veterans Day, the city is showing a film about veterans who served a country with a complicated record toward their own nations. "The People's Protectors," a Twin Cities PBS documentary by filmmaker Leya Hale (Dakota/Diné), screens Friday, Nov. 13, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Schneider Theater, 1800 W. Old Shakopee Road. Admission is free and you don't need to register. All ages are welcome.
The film follows 4 Vietnam War-era veterans: Valerie Barber, Art Owen, Sandy White Hawk and Vince Beyl. Between them they represent the Dakota, Lakota and Ojibwe nations and served in the Marine Corps, the Navy and the Army. The city says the film looks at "the complicated relationship between Native communities and the U.S. government."
Hale and White Hawk, one of the veterans in the film, will take questions after the screening. The screening is the last film in the city's 2026 Indigenous Film Series. The city's Human Rights Commission and Parks and Recreation put on the series with Bloomington Public Schools' American Indian Education Program.
The film isn't new, and it has held up. Hale comes from the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Diné nations. Her later film "Bring Her Home" also won a regional Emmy, and like this one it got national distribution through PBS. In 2020 she received the Sundance Institute's Merata Mita Fellowship for Indigenous Artists.
Questions go to the Center for the Arts at 952-563-8881 or [email protected]. If you're bringing teenagers who think Vietnam is only a chapter in a textbook, this is a chance to hear it from people who were there.
