Heape to film Wolf at Twilight

A conversation with Cherokee filmmaker Steven Heape

By Vincent SchillingAward-Winning Cherokee filmmaker Steven Heape is the president and executive producer of Rich-Heape films. Producing his first film “Location to Recovery” in 1981, Heape has since established himself and his company as the premier source of American Indian films and documentaries.

Heape, along with his associate, filmmaker and producer Chip Richie, have achieved national and international recognition and have received a long and impressive list of awards in the film industry.

In an interview with Indian Country Today, Heape discussed his latest documentary on IHS and an upcoming film project based on the book “The Wolf at Twilight–An Indian Elders Journey Through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows” which will feature August Schellenberg.I hadn't heard of Neither Wolf Nor Dog or its sequel The Wolf at Twilight. Apparently they're good books. The former gets 4.5 stars on Amazon.com and the latter gets a full five stars.

Here's more about The Wolf at Twilight:A note is left on a car windshield, an old dog dies, and Kent Nerburn finds himself back on the Lakota reservation where he traveled more than a decade before with a tribal elder named Dan. The touching, funny, and haunting journey that ensues goes deep into reservation boarding-school mysteries, the dark confines of sweat lodges, and isolated Native homesteads far back in the Dakota hills in search of ghosts that have haunted Dan since childhood.

In this fictionalized account of actual events, Nerburn brings the land of the northern High Plains alive and reveals the Native American way of teaching and learning with a depth that few outsiders have ever captured.

An emotionally exhausting mystery, October 20, 2009
By Joy Dennis (Dallas, TX)

"Wolf At Twilight" is as much a gift as an emotionally exhausting journey that finds you smiling through your tears. For those who learned from the road trip of "Neither Wolf Nor Dog," "Twilight" continues the story with a mystery that Nerburn is drawn through his sense of duty and inability to say no to help solve. Through Nerburn we are allowed a privileged rare glimpse further into the life and teachings of Dan, a Lakota elder, as the seemingly futile search for his sister Yellow Bird gains intensity. The trust between Nerburn, a white man, and Dan and friends is rare and palpable.

A true story that has as much mystery, humor, history, suspense, disbelief, chaos and calm as any I've ever read. I couldn't put it down--embarrassed and saddened at the attempted genocide, bolstered by the knowledge of survival and triumph, frustrated by lack of knowledge, entertained by Charles Bronson and the rich colorful characters, and humbled to rediscover I should talk less and listen more, I emerged with profound send of warmth and renewed faith and a strong desire for more.

You won't find a better read for wisdom, ethnic and cultural diversity, spirituality, and colorful complex human behavior in it's simplest form interwoven with mystery and humor. "Wolf At Twilight" should be required reading for parents and teens alike--a true gift to be shared. Thank you Dan and friends and thank you Kent Nerburn.Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Below:  "Award-winning Cherokee filmmaker Steven Heape is the president and executive producer of Rich-Heape films."