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Sterlin Harjo is a thirty-four year old writer, director, artist, and father from the Creek and Seminole nations. The prolific Harjo is the writer and director of several short and feature-length films as well as a member of the sketch comedy group/YouTube sensation, the 1491s. His short films include: Good Night Irene (2005), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won Special Jury Recognition at the Aspen Shorts Festival; Cepanvkuce Tutcenen/Three Little Boys (2009), which was selected for screening in the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival; and Smiling Indians (2011), a generous and moving response to the photography of Edward Curtis. Harjo's first feature-length film, Four Sheets to the Wind (2007), also premiered at Sundance and went on to gamer Harjo the Best Director award at the American Indian Film Festival ("Sterlin Harjo" n.p.). Barking Water (2009), Harjo's second feature-length film, has earned the director international attention. After a world premiere at Sundance, Barking Water was selected for screening at the New Directors/New Film series in New York City, and was the only American film to show during the Venice Days section of the 2009 Venice Film Festival ("Barking Water" n.p.).
The title, Barking Water, refers to the English translation of the place name, Wewoka, a city which was founded by Black Seminoles and is currently the capital of the Seminole Nation (May n.p.). Harjo's choice of title seems to point to the complex and often violent history of Oklahoma, the movement of people onto and off of Indigenous lands, and the way that Indigenous nationhood and memory persist. Barking Water tells the story of a road trip that two beleaguered and aging ex-lovers, Irene and Frankie, take to bring one of them home to die. In line with the classic road movie, the Oklahoman landscape becomes central to the film. Harjo complicates the genre, however. His shots of expansive skies and rolling hills at dusk are sullied by images of factories pumping smoke into the air, and his primary characters are positioned as outlaws and trespassers on their own territory. Just as the name Barking Water asserts an Indigenous presence on the land, the journey of Irene and Frankie raises question of belonging and Native nationhood in post-contact Oklahoma.
Harjo's most recent...