Rob Brown was so compelling and complex. He defied the simple labels of "gang leader" or "ex-con" or "criminal" or "drug dealer"; he was someone with a deep connection to his Native culture but had also gone through 39 foster families as a kid, 12 years in prison. He had a unique ability to reflect on his situation while in many ways still being trapped in it. Rob's story had never been told and it needed to be.

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My guest today is Jack Pettibone Riccobono, director of The Seventh Fire, a documentary about life on the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota.

Joan Brunwasser: Welcome to OpEdNews, Jack. Why did you make this film?

Jack P. Riccobono: Hi, Joan. Thanks for having me. I think a lot of Americans - myself included before I made this film - have no idea about the situation in Indian Country or the fact that inner city gang culture is influencing many of these communities. And that's partially by design because many reservations are out of sight and out of mind. You almost never see mainstream stories about contemporary Native life, and when you do, they often employ stereotypes.

When I met my main subject Rob Brown six years ago, he was so compelling and complex. He defied the simple labels of "gang leader" or "ex-con" or "criminal" or "drug dealer"; he was someone with a deep connection to his Native culture but had also gone through 39 foster families as a kid, 12 years in prison, and was an active gang member for much of his adult life. He had a unique ability to reflect on his situation while in many ways still being trapped in it. So the simple answer is that Rob's story had never been told and it needed to be.

JB: Agreed. 39 foster homes; yikes! How hard was it to get Rob to sign on for the project?

JPR: We hit it off pretty quickly and he was willing to take the leap after our very first meeting six years ago. I think he was at a particular moment in his life where he was looking for a change and for something different. He was 34 years old and had never expected to live that long. And he recognized that doing this film was a unique opportunity. None of us knew exactly where it would lead. He had great instincts about the filmmaking process and learned very quickly how we approached shooting scenes and how he could facilitate production.

On several occasions, he would be wearing a wireless microphone and go into a house ahead of us. Our sound recordist could hear his associates inside begin to talk about robbing us and stealing our equipment, and we would be outside in the car trying to decide whether to drive off. Then Rob would artfully steer the conversation in another direction and find a way to make it okay that we were there.

So he was really a collaborator from an early stage, and we even gave cameras to Rob and Kevin along the way. Some of the footage they shot made it into the final cut. And of course the relationship developed and deepened over the 14 shoots we completed. It's a journey with a lot of trust flowing in both directions.

JB: What's your filmmaking history, Jack? Had you done anything similar before?

JPR: I studied filmmaking as an undergraduate and have been working in the field since then, producing and directing narrative shorts, commercials, and music videos. About nine years ago I made a short documentary for the Slow Food Organization and that's what first brought me to the White Earth Reservation. It's called The Sacred Food and it's about the wild rice that's held to be a sacred gift by the Ojibwe tribe (available to watch here ). Wild rice is a big part of their oral history and the Seven Fires Prophecy that brought the tribe from the Northeast to the upper Midwest, 500 years before the coming of white settlers.

JB: You did a fine job but no one would ever accuse The Seventh Fireof being an upbeat film. Has that fact affected viewership? How has it been received?

JPR: I think the film takes you into a world and a subculture that most Americans have never seen before. If you watch our trailer, which has been well received, it sets up the right expectation for the viewer.

Audiences are so savvy these days and have seen so much. I know that as a viewer, I'm looking for stories that haven't been told before, stories that are complex and visceral and stick in your head. And for me, there's a lot of humanity, heart and beauty in The Seventh Fire, despite how raw and real it is.

We've had an amazing response from critics, many of whom have picked up on the empathetic, intimate approach we had to filming and the unprecedented access inside this community and inside the Minnesota prison system. And we've had very positive and diverse feedback from audiences around the world and across the country. I don't think people shy away from tough subject matter if they're drawn into the story.

JB: I'm glad to hear that. Did I hear that the film screened at the White House? How did that come about? And wouldn't that give the film more cachet and a huge boost to your credibility?

JPR: Yeah, that was definitely something we didn't see coming! The Seventh Fire was invited to screen at the White House in March and our main subjects were on a special panel with President Obama's top adviser on Native American affairs Karen Diver, Dept of Justice officials, Bill Keller, the editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project, and Jamelle Bouie, Slate's chief political correspondent. It was an amazing experience. For Kevin, it was his first time on an airplane and his first time out of the state of Minnesota.

It's a real testament to President Obama that the film was screened without any censorship or alteration in one of the most elite and high-powered places on Earth, and that our two main subjects - former gang members and convicted felons - were invited to share their stories on this panel with senior officials. I honestly still can't believe it happened.

President Obama is the first sitting president to visit a federal prison and only the third sitting president to ever visit a Native American reservation. And he's made it a priority in his final year in office to push for criminal justice reform and raise awareness about issues in Indian Country. So it was a very special honor and an incredible opportunity to share the film with key policymakers. The panel was also livestreamed on the White House YouTube channel and we have the full discussion available at TheSeventhFire.com.

JB: That is surprising and encouraging. What else would you like to add before we wrap this up?

JPR: We just released a limited edition art book entitled White Earth Stories that features a collection of poems Rob composed while incarcerated and stills from the film (link to publisher's page: http://candb.co/white-earth-stories ). Rob is a self-taught writer who discovered writing as a creative outlet during his years of incarceration. When we were about 50% finished with production, Rob was sentenced to go back to prison for a fifth time and I encouraged him to keep a journal. He would send me handwritten pages in the mail of daily observations and poems, and that's what led to this book project.

It was a really challenging moment when he was sent back to prison and we didn't know if we would be able to capture this part of his life. We worked very hard to gain the trust of the Minnesota Department of Corrections and became the first independent film crew to shoot within their prison system.

The Seventh Fire took 4 years to make and it's very much a labor of love. We want it to reach the widest audience possible, so if the film resonates with you, please tell a friend!

Thank you for this opportunity to talk with you. All my best wishes.

JB: Thanks so much for talking with me, Jack. Good luck with the film!

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The digital release is tomorrow and it'll be available on iTunes and Amazon Video.

The Seventh Fire is getting big reviews. Check 'em out!

http://www.vogue.com/13460560/the-seventh-fire-documentary-film-review-interview-native-american-reservation-terrence-malick/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/movies/seventh-fire-review.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/the-seventh-fire-finds-reservation-life-almost-too-bleak-to-bear-8888512

http://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-seventh-fire

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JACK PETTIBONE RICCOBONO has directed and produced a wide range of narrative, documentary, and commercial work across the five boroughs of his native New York City and around the world, from Moscow to Shanghai to Freetown. A graduate of Harvard's VES Film Production Program and Werner Herzog's Rogue Film School, his films have screened at venues including DocumentaMadrid, New Directors / New Films, the American University in Rome, the New Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), the Museum of Modern Art, and at the White House. In 2008, he founded ALL RITES RESERVED, a company dedicated to producing films with global reach that push visual and conceptual boundaries. His feature documentary The Seventh Fire about Native American gang members premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival.

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Thanks to Mark Crispin Miller for suggesting this interview.

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.