Rebecca Landsberry-Baker is a Sundance Institute Documentary Movie Program grantee, Ford Basis JustFilms grantee, and a 2022 NBC Unique Voices Fellow. She is a 2022 Gotham Documentary Function Lab Fellow and was chosen to the Harvard Shorenstein Information Leaders Fall 2022 cohort. She is an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee Nation and the manager director of the Native American Journalists Affiliation, a nonprofit group advocating for correct protection and illustration of Indigenous individuals in media. Landsberry-Baker is a 2018 recipient of the Nationwide Middle for American Indian Enterprise Improvement’s Native American 40 Underneath 40 award.
“Dangerous Press” is screening on the 2023 Sundance Movie Competition, which runs from January 19-29. The movie is co-directed by Joe Peeler.
W&H: Describe the movie for us in your individual phrases.
RLB: “Dangerous Press” paperwork the struggle at no cost press within the Muscogee Nation and follows tenacious reporter Angel Ellis and a hilarious crew of fellow Indigenous journalists as they journey a tribal politics rollercoaster.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
RLB: In my former life as a print editor at Mvskoke Media, I skilled censorship within the newsroom alongside our movie’s individuals, a lot of whom are fellow Muscogee residents and journalists. Tribal media face distinctive challenges in protecting their very own communities, together with often “slaying heroes,” as journalist Angel Ellis places it, so this story could be very private to me.
Throughout my time as a member, and finally as government director of the Native American Journalists Affiliation (NAJA), I’ve witnessed tribal journalists being censored for unfavorable protection, so I wished to inform the Muscogee journalists’ story of the battle at no cost press in Indian Nation. I’m so grateful they’ve trusted me to share it with the world.
W&H: What would you like individuals to consider after they watch the movie?
RLB: For each my fellow residents and a broader viewers, It was vital for me to focus on how an impartial media can strengthen tribal sovereignty as a result of it supplies accountability, transparency, and finally empowers knowledgeable decision-making amongst the individuals.
W&H: What was the most important problem in making the movie?
RLB: Filming over the course of three full years from 2019-2021 with a group that had different full-time jobs — together with me — whereas we adopted this story was significantly difficult, particularly in the course of the top of the pandemic. We additionally had three infants born between the 5 producers, together with my daughter, Rosie, to my husband and producer Garrett Baker and me, over the course of manufacturing. Juggling childcare with directing and my full-time job with NAJA continues to be a each day problem!
W&H: How did you get your movie funded? Share some insights into how you bought the movie made.
RLB: Our group has obtained grants from Ford Basis, the Sundance Institute Documentary Movie Program, 2022 NBC Information Unique Voices Fellowship, and funding by fairness investments.
W&H: What impressed you to turn into a filmmaker?
RLB: With my background in journalism and connection to this story and our individuals, documenting the struggle at no cost press actually turned my duty as a member of this neighborhood. Now that I’ve skilled how highly effective and impactful this type of storytelling will be, I wish to encourage different Indigenous journalists to discover documentary filmmaking as a option to share the pressing, nuanced, and entertaining tales which are already right here in our Indigenous communities.
W&H: What’s the very best and worst recommendation you’ve obtained?
RLB: Any time I used to be discouraged from pursuing one thing vital to me — whether or not that was a narrative I wished to jot down in The Muscogee Nation Information in my early profession or now to “airing the tribe’s soiled laundry” in a characteristic documentary — I’ve all the time additionally been motivated by being underestimated. I like it when somebody tells me I can’t do one thing as a result of I’m too younger — don’t hear that one a lot anymore, haha — or too inexperienced.
Indigenous persons are scrappy AF and we’ll discover a option to succeed!
W&H: What recommendation do you’ve got for different girls administrators?
RLB: As a first-time or early-career filmmaker, don’t let your inexperience maintain you again from telling the tales which are most vital to you. Your views are important to the variety of the media panorama and to storytelling that’s consultant of the distinctive female expertise. We want you!
W&H: Identify your favourite woman-directed movie and why.
RLB: I’ll use this area to amplify fellow Indigenous director Erica Tremblay (Seneca-Cayuga Nation) who may also be premiering her characteristic movie “Fancy Dance” on the 2023 Sundance Movie Competition. I’d love to fulfill her!
W&H: What, if any, duties do you suppose storytellers need to confront the tumult on this planet, from the pandemic to the lack of abortion rights and systemic violence?
RLB: Storytellers are important to the understanding of vital societal points as a result of they contextualize info and doc key moments in our residing historical past. As journalists and documentarians, we completely have a duty to point out the human affect of coverage and decision-making by the elected leaders who’re entrusted to guard our greatest pursuits.
W&H: The movie business has a protracted historical past of underrepresenting individuals of colour onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — unfavourable stereotypes. What actions do you suppose must be taken to make Hollywood and/or the doc world extra inclusive?
RLB: Incentivize hiring and supporting BIPOC above- and below-the-line expertise by new and expanded funding alternatives, mentorships, and culturally related applications that purpose to foster private improvement in storytelling broadly, not simply in filmmaking — creatively, financially, virtually, and spiritually. Present psychological well being and childcare help and stipends for these with households!
Supply: Women And Hollywood
