Lost Nation: The Ioway

Four-Star Movie Review for "Lost Nation: The Ioway 2&3" Documentary

KS/NE Ioway Brett Ramey appears on the Giant Screen at the Putnam Museum.

Story of Ioway Continues in Moving Documentary

by Movie Reviewer Linda Cook
Quad City Times

4-out-of-4 stars

Sometimes one documentary isn’t enough.

Quad-City filmmakers Tammy and Kelly Rundle of Fourth Wall Films discovered that there is so much to tell about the Ioway, the Native American tribe from which the state of Iowa takes its name.

Filmmakers Tammy & Kelly Rundle in Iowa County, Wisconsin.

Their documentary, “Lost Nation: The Ioway,” which was broadcast last year on Iowa Public Television and has also been shown at many special screenings, tells the story of the Ioway, beginning with their presence in an area between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers from Pipestone, Minn., on the north to St. Louis on the south to the present day.

Ioway leader Notchininga (No Heart). Circa 1850s.

The compelling story of the Ioway, indeed the history of the state, continues in the next two segments: “Lost Nation: The Ioway 2 and 3.” The Rundles have uncovered yet more archival images, maps, letters and even a cylinder recording of an Ioway-Otoe song. It all combines for a more vibrant history and story about the current status of the tribe that has lost much of its language and customs to history.

Oklahoma Ioway early leadership. 

Tribal elders and other members recount the experiences of their grandparents, many of whom attended mission schools where they were not allowed to speak their own language. Archaeologists, historians and scholars discuss the sites where the Ioway once lived and the ways the people were forced from their lands.

Oklahoma Ioway Tribe Elder Mae Murray Sine shares her family history with the Rundles for the film.

Some of the stories that those interviewed tell are heartbreaking. “For generations, you weren’t proud to be an Indian,” one man says. Another tells how he was able to overcome anger to find forgiveness for what happened to his tribe.

A girl in her teens sheds tears when she discusses seeing artifacts in a museum and realizing what will happen if she does not teach the Ioway traditions to her own grandchildren. A young man talks about how the Ioway thought of horses as friends, or “medicine dogs.” An eagle rescuer in Oklahoma discusses the great reverence the tribe has for the birds.

KS/NE Ioway Tribe Elder Patt Murphy sits for his on-camera interview with the Rundles.

Regardless of your own personal heritage, you are bound to be moved by these beautiful films. The look of the land is painterly. If you’re from the Midwest, you may be astonished at the beauty that truly is in your own back yard. And the way the Ioway related, and still relate, to the land is a significant reflection of the tribe’s past and present.

Blood Run National Historic Landmark, Lyon County, Iowa.

The Rundles expertly capture the oral history, the people you won’t soon forget and their past that must not be forgotten.

"Lost Nation: The Ioway" is Positively Reviewed by Multimedia Trade Publication

The May 1, 2010 issue of Multimedia & Internet @ Schools featured a review of the Lost Nation: The Ioway DVD and accompanying Curriculum Guide.

"Lost Nation: The Ioway provides a powerful and moving case study of the relationship between the early arriving Europeans and the native people. The documentary and its supporting materials can be used to explore the general themes and issues of this relationship, as well as to examine the methods of social science research...This DVD provides a potent look at the past for students of social studies and American history and has the potential to enrich a unit of study in which students conduct interviews, engage in memoir writing, or develop oral story-telling skills for language arts."

Read the entire review online: http://www.mmischools.com/Articles/Editorial/Product-Reviews/Lost-Nation-The-Ioway-67006.aspx

Visit our website for more information on the Lost Nation: The Ioway Native American historical DVD and Curriculum Guide: http://iowaymovie.com/curriculum.htm

'Lost Nation: The Ioway' is "...lavish...moving...required viewing...", says 'Villisca Review'

Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma Tribal Elder Joyce Big Soldier Miller and the State Historical Society of Iowa's Cyndi Pederson at the world premiere of Lost Nation: The Ioway in Des Moines.  Nearly 200 Ioway people gathered for the event.

[Film review courtesy of the Villisca Review]

A Nation Rediscovered

The Villisca Review - Stanton Viking
Thursday, February 26, 2009
By Judith Ann Moriarty

Kelly and Tammy Rundle mailed me the DVD of Lost Nation: The Ioway, which screened to acclaim throughout the Midwest. You readers know this documentary film duo from their splendid Villisca: Living with a Mystery and I was mighty privileged to sponsor a screening of it in Milwaukee.

The Rundles have moved from Los Angeles and are currently settled in Moline, Illinois, where they continue to develop their careers and add to the list of honors reaped from their efforts. It's good that they are back in the Midwest, primarily because that's where they were born and educated. The heart of their sensitivity seems to be rooted near rivers, plains and rolling terrain

Because their work is primarily funded by various humanities councils (including Humanities Iowa), there is always the danger that their films will be overly sentimentalized through the rosy lens of history, in this case, the Native American as heroic warrior washed in a river of tears. The flip side of that is the Native American as a screaming savage circa John Wayne films. These filmmakers have found the truth somewhere between those extremes.

Filmmakers Kelly & Tammy Rundle and John Palmquist (center).

It's a fine line to walk, for what's not to like about rolling landscapes, grazing buffalo, tall prairie grass, snaking rivers and snippets of observations from the learned mouths of archeologists and historians? Unreeling to the sounds of Amazing Grace interspersed with lusciously verdant flora and fauna, the opening scenes in Ioway veered mighty close to being a promo for the beautiful Midwest.

That said, the filmmakers walked the aforementioned line just fine, thank you, and I think it should be required viewing for all students of American History. Indeed, it does come with a study guide on the elaborate [DVD] menu. The quality of the film is good; the colors lavish but not overblown in a push to magnify effect where none is needed.

It's a straight forward telling of the Ioway, a tribe whose number is variously thought to have ranged from 1,000 to 2,000 souls. Agrarian lives morphed radically when they began to trade with Europeans (enter smallpox) and changed even more when they sold (often without the aid of interpreters) their territory to the U.S. government. The Feds got a real deal on the fertile land which stretched from far north to southern Missouri.

The most moving segments are interviews with those who remain Ioways forever even though their past has all but been erased. They hang on via Powwows, the preservation of their language and the re-invention of their [traditional] crafts. They hang on by visiting family burial grounds almost lost in soybean fields.

A grove of trees conceals an Ioway family cemetery.

Yes, there are tears here, but the Rundles don't let their camera look away. Some would say this is an "invasion of privacy," but documentaries record genuine moments and it is those moments that breathe life into the best of them.

It's to their credit that the film is empathetic but never smarmy. Stanton resident, John Palmquist, inspired the film, and in fact, he is an honorary member of the Iowa Tribes of Kansas and Nebraska and [The Iowa Tribe of] Oklahoma.

This particular DVD is available via http://www.iowaymovie.com/dvd.htm, and is also available at Amazon.com, Borders.com and BarnesAndNoble.com.  The Ioway DVD will also be sold in Villisca by the Villisca Historical Society, Inc. (VHSI) at City Hall.  A portion of the proceeds will benefit the VHSI.  Shown at Villisca's sesquicentennial weekend in 2008, an earlier DVD, Villisca: Living with a Mystery, is available locally at Casey's and Stoner Drug [in Villisca, Iowa].

A note from the energetic Rundles indicates Ioway just screened three times at the February 6-7) Fairfield, Iowa Film Expo, and recently won Best Multicultural Documentary at the International Cherokee Film Festival.  Six more showings are currently scheduled for 2009.

As if that wasn't work aplenty, the determined duo's documentary Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg, is due for release in late 2009, and Country School: One Room-One Nation, in 2010.

[Judith Moriarty is an artist and writer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.]

 

First "Ioway" DVD Review Lauds Film and Features

Native American Splendor: "Lost Nation: The Ioway,"
by Kelly and Tammy Rundle, on DVD October 7



Written by Mike Schulz
River Cities' Reader, Wednesday, 01 October 2008 

Last October, Moline-based filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle debuted their documentary Lost Nation: The Ioway, a 53-minute exploration of the Native Americans for whom the state of Iowa was named. And if you were one of the lucky ones who saw this Fourth Wall Films production at its October 11 premiere in Des Moines, its October 21 engagement at the Putnam Museum & IMAX Theatre, or its subsequent screenings throughout the Midwest, you likely already know that it's something special - a fantastically informative, beautifully constructed, and (not for nothing) thoroughly enjoyable piece of work.

Yet while the film is pretty great, its DVD (available October 7) is absolutely outstanding. Lost Nation: The Ioway has been made with intelligence and skill, and as Kelly Rundle says on one of the movie's two commentary tracks, viewers appear responsive to it "not because it's a Native American story, but because it's a human story." Fittingly, the bonus features have been assembled with as much thought, care, and filmmaking savvy - and joy - as Lost Nation itself. (There's even something akin to a gag reel.) The extras here do exactly what DVD extras ideally should: They entertain, but they also expand your appreciation of the movie by offering so much more to appreciate.

Chief among the DVD's pleasures is, of course, its feature attraction. (Kelly serves as Lost Nation's director, editor, and cinematographer, and he and wife Tammy share producing, writing, and sound credits.) Detailing the complex, heartbreaking history of the Ioway, a largely forgotten tribe of Native Americans, the movie contains lucid commentary from Midwestern scientists and scholars, and is filled with fascinating anecdotes; archaeologist Dale Henning discusses the days when one could travel much of Iowa by canoe, and artist Lance Foster offers insight into Ioway tools and dietary staples. (Singed raccoon, we learn, is a delicacy "so tender that it's like pork.") Among the 35 interviewees, however, more than a dozen are Ioway tribe members, and their recollections, imaginings, and visible pride and melancholy lend the history even greater social context. Lost Nation isn't merely interested in who the Ioway were, but how who they were shaped who they are now. (A similar effect was produced in the Rundles' chilling ax-murder documentary, Villisca: Living with a Mystery.)

Through the wonderfully knowledgeable and engaging on-screen participants, the Ioway's tragic past and still-vital present come alive without the filmmakers resorting to re-creation or voice-over, and the movie is aesthetically gorgeous, to boot. Filmed on location in eight U.S. states, the compositions are beautiful without calling undue attention to their beauty (shots never last longer than necessary), and even the rare detours into cliché are effective; scoring a film's prelude to Amazing Grace isn't exactly novel (or subtle), but the haunting flute rendition here sets the appropriate elegiac tone, and its selection becomes retrospectively moving when, 40 minutes later, we hear it performed in the language of the Ioway.

A bare-bones DVD edition of Lost Nation would, in itself, be worth celebrating. But given its plethora of bonus features, this package might just be indispensable, not least for the commentary track offered by linguist Jimm Goodtracks, who translates the entire film in the Ioway language. There are expanded and new interviews; charming, hugely informative commentary with the Rundles; a mini-doc filmed at a Native American powwow; an intriguing look at an archaeological dig with students from Luther College; and an extra that's almost stunningly smart - a 10-minute (on the dot!) version of the movie designed for elementary-school students that touches on nearly all of the film's main themes and provides ample opportunities for classroom discussion.

And then there's the DVD's "Behind the Scenes" feature, which is indispensable in its own right. We rarely think of the talking heads in documentaries as "performers," but as this utterly delightful featurette makes clear, accidents occur just as readily in nonfiction as in fiction: interviewees get tongue-tied and ask to start over; microphones are knocked over; outdoor filming halts while trains pass. (At one point, after an interviewee giggles at her momentary lack of composure, Kelly says, "We promise that won't be in the film," and Tammy adds, "It'll be in the outtakes.")

The Rundles treat their subject matter with the utmost respect, but there's also a playful spirit in both the feature and its bountiful extras - the joy of filmmakers clearly in love with movies, and the art of making movies. Lost Nation: The Ioway's final outtake finds a man speaking and suddenly coughing, telling the filmmakers, "I swallowed a bug." Which is exactly what Marlon Brando says in his most famous flub in the Apocalypse Now doc Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. There's no way the Rundles could have possibly planned their interviewee's bug-swallowing response, but this movie-lover's heart soared knowing that they recognized it.

Lost Nation: The Ioway will be available at Borders, Amazon.com, and other DVD retailers beginning Tuesday, October 7. For more information on the film, visit IowayMovie.com.

"Lost Nation: The Ioway" - Four Stars!

MOVIE REVIEW:

Rundle’s ‘Ioway’ is perfectly complete

By Linda Cook, QUAD CITY TIMES / October 20, 2007

I have an idea for a new verb: “Rundle.” It means to perfectly complete a project through diligent work.

For example: “It took her two years, but she rundled that basement. It’s a showcase now!”

Maybe I’ll give Webster’s a call. In the meantime, you can see what I mean for yourself when you watch “Lost Nation: The Ioway” because Quad-Citians Tammy and Kelly Rundle just can’t seem to do anything wrong. They created the marvelous “Villisca: Living with a Mystery,” about the 1912 ax murders of eight people in a small southwestern Iowa town. (Small wonder that it competed for the 2005 Academy Awards.)

Now here the filmmakers are again with another fantastic documentary that was written, produced and directed by Kelly Rundle and written and produced by his wife, Tammy Rundle.

What the hour-long documentary reveals truly is a lost nation: The Ioway are American Indians who lost their land, their culture and almost their language after the federal government moved them. In the film, you’ll see and hear many members of the Ioway bemoan the loss of so much of their tradition.

The Rundles show the state of Iowa at its finest with its grassy plains and blue skies. We see the land as the Ioway, who controlled about 60,000 square miles of the Midwest, must have viewed it hundreds of years ago. We even get a close-up look at buffalo roaming the grassy lands. We also see the bark huts in which these people lived.

In addition, we hear historians, Ioway elders and archaeologists discuss how the people lived then and how they observe their traditions now. The audience becomes acquainted with Ioway tribe members, including Kansas pottery maker Reuben Kent, who discusses the way his ancestors made pottery hundreds of years ago.

The film moves back and forth in time to include the story of White Cloud, an Ioway leader, and the dilemma he faced in dealing with the U.S. government. Through treaties that were made with U.S. officials, the Ioway were removed from their lands.

This is going to look awfully familiar to most local viewers because much of “Lost Nation” was shot in and near Iowa, including locations such as the Living History Farms 1700 Ioway Village in Des Moines, Luther College in Decorah, the Blood Run Historic Site in Lyon County, White Cloud Statue in Mahaska County, Hayden Prairie State Preserve in Howard County and Hawkeye Buffalo Ranch in Fredericksburg.

The most compelling moments are reflective, quiet scenes in which contemporary Ioway tribe members mourn their ancestral past and contemplate the future.

You don’t have to be a history buff to enjoy this film. And you don’t have to be a movie buff to anticipate what these fine filmmakers will “rundle” next.

4 stars (out of 4)

Director: Kelly Rundle

Screenwriter: Tammy Rundle

Running time: 60 minutes

Rated: Unrated (but suitable for general audiences)

(Links and rating information in review above added by Fourth Wall Films.)