JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Some of the first moving images of Native Americans were recently rediscovered in Idaho. They are in a rare silent film, shown to the public for the first time in decades. Northwest Public Broadcasting's Lauren Paterson was there.
LAUREN PATERSON, BYLINE: In a crowded theater in Moscow, Idaho, Nakia Williamson-Cloud, a historian with the Nez Perce Tribe, says the newly rediscovered film being shown here is powerful. There are very few motion pictures of Nez Perce people from the early 20th century.
NAKIA WILLIAMSON-CLOUD: The lodges, the horses and even a lot of the ceremonies that are represented are authentic Nez Perce ceremonies that our people carried forth from the time of the buffalo days to the time of the reservation period.
PATERSON: "Told In The Hills" is a Western made in the silent film era. It's a fictional story of Jack Stuart, a man from a wealthy family who moves West and is accused of killing an Indian chief. Its goal wasn't to document Native American dances and ceremonies, but it did. In fact, a federal law at the time forbade the kinds of traditional indigenous religious practices captured in the film. Depicting the actual ceremonies, even if they were in a fictional film, Williamson-Cloud says, ended up preserving those traditions.
WILLIAMSON-CLOUD: That just shows the resiliency of our people and the ability to kind of try to find those openings and those times where they could express who they really were.
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PATERSON: About 120 people came to what archivists called "Told In The Hills'" restoration premiere. After the film made its initial run in 1919, it disappeared. A copy ended up in Russia, which was often the last stop for films touring Europe, says Alex Meregaglia, an archivist with Boise State University and a bit of a film buff.
ALEX MEREGAGLIA: The Soviets had a penchant for creating an archive, and a lot of American silent films are still there.
PATERSON: In the 1980s, an English professor at Boise State who was researching early Idaho films got a tip that "Told In The Hills" might be in the Soviet Union. He wrote to the Russians, who said they had the film and sent it to the university in 1987. It's only being shown publicly now because Colin Mannex, who runs the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre here in Moscow, got a tip last spring that the film might be in the university archives. He found it and, with state and private funding, got the film digitized to 4K so it could be shown in theaters.
COLIN MANNEX: Part of what we're doing here with the Silent Film Festival is providing a stage - or a screen, rather - for these films to be reintegrated to our collective cultural memory.
PATERSON: The restored version of the film was shown at the Kenworthy - its first showing since 1919. One hundred and twenty people came to the Friday night show. Mother and daughter, Jennifer and Lisa Wilcox.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah, it was really great. Neat little piece of history.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah.
PATERSON: Bob Woods says he grew up in Kamiah, near the canyon where some of the scenes took place.
BOB WOODS: Lawyer's Canyon - I know it right off the bat.
PATERSON: What did you think of the movie?
WOODS: I thought it was great. I just loved it. I knew this might be the only chance I'd ever have to see this, so I had to come.
PATERSON: Nakia Williamson-Cloud, the tribal historian, says having the movie restored and preserved is a way for the tribe to revisit their ancestors.
WILLIAMSON-CLOUD: Some of those songs that were sung at that time, we still - our community still holds today.
PATERSON: He hopes that some traditional music from the tribe could be infused into future showings. But only two of the original six reels of "Told In The Hills" were recovered. The action scenes and many of the ceremonies featuring the tribe are still missing.
WILLIAMSON-CLOUD: I think the big kind of hope would be that the rest of the film might come into discovery, and perhaps that could be edited back in.
PATERSON: Archivists say chances are slim. But Williamson-Cloud is hopeful the other reels are out there somewhere. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Paterson in Moscow, Idaho.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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