Sometimes it’s the secondary choice that may turn out to be one’s true love.  At least, that’s the way it looks right now for Georgina Lightning who has just directed the indie film “Older Than America.”  Her movie has won a voluptuous 18 awards to date and is still going strong!

When Georgina was training as an actress back in Canada , she never gave a moment’s thought to producing or directing.  “Never,” she said.  “I was under the impression that being an actor would satisfy me.  There was no “what I really wanna do is direct” T-shirt (so commonly seen in Los Angeles) for her. 

Lightning had studied her craft of acting in Canada and came to L.A. believing it would pay off.  When the movie roles were not forthcoming, she began to get into organizations that were supposed to promote “minority” talent.  “I was on all these “diversity” boards,” she said from her hotel room in Minnesota .

After several years of those activities, she asked one of the ladies who is involved in those groups. 

“I asked Carmen how many Natives were hired in the last pilot season,” Georgina said.

“Well, none,” was Carmen’s reply.

“What about the breakdowns?  Any Natives in there?”  No again.

Georgina continued.  “What about staff writers for TV shows?  Spec writers?  Guest writers?” 

“Uh, none,” Carmen had to confess.

“And how many Native directors?” Georgina pressed on.  Zip. Nada.

In her own direct way, Georgina ’s conclusion was, “We’re just as screwed as we were ten years ago before these diversity boards started.”

At that point, Lightning dropped out of all the organizations because, “It’s not productive,” she said.

Like a lightning flash, she came to the realization that, “In order to get anything happening, we have to do it ourselves.”

So she did it herself.  In 2002, she formed “Tribal Alliance Production Company” with Audrey Martinez. Crisis, however, almost stopped her in her producing tracks. Suicides began to escalate back home on her rez. “Kids were killing themselves left and right,” she said. “Kids I participated in their lives.”

"Bingo orphans, I called them,” Lightning said. “Kids who got dropped off at my center and then picked up at 10:00 at night, or not picked up and I drove them home.”

“I began to become so numb to suicide,” she said.

“I liked my life in Burbank, but I told myself I was being selfish,” she said. “If I go back home to Canada, I can do more for our people.”

She went home, did lots of praying, and the answer she got was that she could do more for her people if she stayed in Los Angeles. So she did.

When the idea for “Older than America” came about, the producer she was working with, Christine Walker, approached her in pre-production and told her, “We don’t have to interview any more directors because you’re gonna do it.”

Lightning said it took a couple of weeks to think that one over.  Then John Fusco, the writer told her, “Surround yourself with the best (production crew).  Let them know your weaknesses and they’ll help you.”

“Older” is about Native boarding schools.  Lightning believes they are the single reason for the problems in Indian Country.  “It’s why we are in the state we’re in,” she said.

Lightning presents some sobering statistics.  “50% of the kids in boarding schools died there.”

The cast she assembled for the movie was stellar.  Adam Beach (“Law & Order,” “Windtalkers,” “Squanto,” “Smoke Signals”); Wes Studi (“Dances With Wolves,” “Geronimo;” A.I.M. co-founder Dennis Banks (“Last of the Mohicans,” “War Party”); Dan Harrison, (a competitive pow wow dancer from the Muscogee Tribe in Oklahoma and a cultural monitor for the Agua Caliente Band of Indians) and Crystle Lightning, among others.

Lightning had a rather novel idea for her production workers.  “I want a crew that acts like a family,” she said.  “I want that spirit of energy from the beginning.”

Even given that, she says, “It was the hardest work I’ve ever done.  You have to attach yourself to a project for several years,” she said.

She mentioned one particular shooting day when, “It was minus 300,” she said.  “It’s freezing cold.  We’re working 14-15 hour days.  It’s constant.  We’re constantly going.”

Nevertheless, her wish came true.  “The set was harmonious,” she said.

Perhaps part of that harmony is a result of Lightning’s attitude.  “I was always very grateful when people did a good job,” she said.  “They always watched to see if I did The Happy Dance.”

First and foremost, Lightning wanted the film to be entertaining.  “Who is the audience for a film about boarding schools?” she rhetorically asked, implying it is very small.  “I didn’t want that audience,” she said.  “I want the world.”

How is it entertaining? “It is an interesting set of characters,” she said. (Given the actors she got lined up, how could it not be?) The lead is a woman who went to boarding school and, thereby, turned into “The Perfect Indian.”

“We open with her having a nightmare of a ceremony,” said Georgina. “Her mother was institutionalized, diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic. She was given electric shock treatments.”

To make sure those scenes were realistic, Lightning studied the physicality of shock treatments and made sure it was portrayed accurately. (Apparently, it worked because she said some people have to cover their eyes during that scene.)

One night, the character sees spirits on the road of kids who were buried at the boarding school. As a result, she is also given shock treatments. Eventually, “she gets her mom out of the nut house,” Lightning said.

To date, she has done 38 screenings with very profound and satisfying results.

She is very happy with “the healing property that is in it,” she said. “It’s telling the truth. We talk about it – get it out into the open. I want to get us back to everything we were before boarding schools.”

In the Q & A’s after the film, some of the comments have been, “Now I understand my mother.”  And “Now I know I have to forgive my father for what he did to me.”

“It’s created this crazy dialogue all over,” Lightning glowed.

She said only one person expressed being upset at the Q&A. A Native man stood up and said, “I’m a devout Christian. Are you saying I should give up being a Christian?”

“That is never in there,” Lightning said. “That’s not implied anywhere. The story just happened in a school run by a church.”

Lightning said she is not trying to cast dispersions on anyone’s faith. “I’m not bashing any religion,” she said. “They take the basics of something beautiful.”

She particularly remembers one 60-year-old man who stood to talk after watching the film and was so overwhelmed with emotion, he couldn’t speak for several moments.

She also recalls one experience when she was standing in the popcorn line while the film was going on. “A guy in the line said, ‘That’s not even true’,” not knowing that Lightning was the director.

She explained to him the basics of Film 101. “It’s make believe, but we cover true events. You take a subject and build a story around it.”

Lightning said that in Canada, there has been $7 billion issued for the healing of boarding school survivors.

The prime Minister issued an apology to Native survivors of boarding schools. She was told that The Pope also did the same. “In Canada, the tribes elect one Grand Chief for all of them,” she said. “He went to Italy to hear the Pope’s apology.”

Her goal is to get a screening at the White House. She is working on having Oprah and Pres. Obama see the film.  “If Oprah and Barack could see the film, that would be my

dream come true,” she said. A good distribution company in Canada is working with her.

And it all came about from one door being shut and another being opened. “It happened because I was a frustrated actor,” Lightning said.  “It was disheartening.  It was heartbreaking.”

She has had an epiphany about acting.  “It was only satisfying if the story says something,” she said.

Now, with her production company, she can pick the stories.  Lightning expressed her goal, “I want to be involved in media that matters.”

Next projects?  “A hockey movie like ‘Bad News Bears’ in Indian Country!”

Also, “A vigilante movie about over 500 plus women and girls who have gone missing in Canada and nothing has been done about it,” she said.

Any tribe can set up a screening, and a trailer of the film is available online at www.olderthanamerica.com.

The night of our interview, Lightning needed to get up for an early day the the next day because it was “Fishing Opener” and she would be sitting in a boat most of the day.  And the following night was another screening.  So as Willie Nelson sings, “On the road again” for her quest that the world should know the truth about Native people.

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