'Woman Walks Ahead' Lead Sees A Sea Change For Indigenous People On Film
Michael Greyeyes, a Cree actor from a First Nation in Canada, plays the great Native American chief Sitting Bull in a new film. He says it's the role of a lifetime — and a portent of things to come.
In Woman Walks Ahead, a New York City activist and artist named Catherine Weldon (played by Jessica Chastain) travels across the United States to paint the great Native American chief Sitting Bull. The role of Sitting Bull is portrayed with humor and complexity by Michael Greyeyes, who is Plains Cree and hails from Muskeg Lakes First Nation in Canada.
Based on real-life events, the movie finds Sitting Bull just after he was released from penitentiary for his involvement at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. "So this is really a portrait of a man near the end of his life — disillusioned, really, by the dispossession and violence that his community had faced," Greyeyes says.
