Thanks to the generosity and commitment of host Tracy Frist and sponsors the Heritage Foundation of Williamson County and Nashville Public Television, and with the support of The Better Angels Society, the historic Franklin Theatre will host an early preview of THE AMERICAN BUFFALO, a new film directed by Ken Burns, Monday, September 25. Excerpts of the film will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Senator Bill Frist, global chair of The Nature Conservancy, featuring Dayton Duncan, writer of THE AMERICAN BUFFALO, Dr. Dwayne Estes, executive director of the Southeastern Grasslands Institute, and Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian Jon Meacham.
The Franklin community will be among the first in the country to receive a preview of the highly anticipated film weeks before it airs nationally on Oct. 16 and 17 on PBS and be one of the few locations to host the film’s writer Duncan (COUNTRY MUSIC, THE DUST BOWL, THE NATIONAL PARKS, LEWIS & CLARK) in person. Duncan is also the author of the companion book, “Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo,” to be published in early November.
“We’re so proud to welcome the most talented people working in documentary filmmaking for a very special evening in Franklin, Tennessee at the historic Franklin Theatre,” said Tracy Frist, philanthropist and host of the event. “Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan are celebrated American treasures, so to host Dayton Duncan and be among the first to be treated to a preview of Ken Burns’s newest film is an opportunity that does not come along often.”
Continued Frist, “As a community that so deeply values history and its preservation, the story of THE AMERICAN BUFFALO will resonate with Franklin and Middle Tennessee. We’re so excited to be able to showcase the very best of American storytelling on literally one of America’s most celebrated Main Streets.”
“We are so pleased to present this special event alongside such great partners,” said Katherine Malone-France, President and CEO of The Better Angels Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating Americans about their history through documentary film, which raised over $5 million to fund THE AMERICAN BUFFALO. “The Better Angels Society believes that historical documentary films are a powerful tool to engage Americans with the stories of our shared history and create opportunities for thoughtful discussions that link our past and our future. We look forward to previewing Ken’s new film with Tennesseans in September in Franklin, a community with a deep appreciation for the ongoing relevance of our common history, and with a national audience when it airs on PBS in October.”
Tickets will be available on the Franklin Theatre’s website this Friday at 11 a.m. (August 18): https://www.franklintheatre.com/.
All proceeds will go to The Better Angels Society, Heritage Foundation of Wiliamson County, and The Franklin Theatre.
THE AMERICAN BUFFALO is the biography of an improbable, shaggy beast that has found itself at the center of many of the country’s most mythic and heartbreaking tales. The series, which has been in production for four years, will take viewers on a journey through more than 10,000 years of North American history and across some of the continent’s most iconic landscapes, tracing the mammal’s evolution, its significance to the Great Plains and, most importantly, its relationship to the Indigenous People of North America.
“It is a quintessentially American story,” Ken Burns said, “filled with unforgettable stories and people. But it is also a morality tale encompassing two historically significant lessons that resonate today: how humans can damage the natural world and also how we can work together to make choices to preserve the environment around us. The story of the American buffalo is also the story of Native nations who lived with and relied on the buffalo to survive, developing a sacred relationship that evolved over more than 10,000 years but which was almost completely severed in fewer than 100.”
For thousands of generations, buffalo have evolved alongside Indigenous people who relied on them for food and shelter, and, in exchange for killing them, revered the animal. The stories of Native people anchor the series, including the Kiowa, Comanche and Cheyenne of the Southern Plains; the Pawnee of the Central Plains; the Salish, Kootenai, Lakota, Mandan-Hidatasa, Aaniiih, Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Blackfeet from the Northern Plains; and others.
The film includes interviews with leading Native American scholars, land experts and Tribal Nation members. Among those interviewed were Gerard Baker (Mandan-Hidatsa), George Horse Capture, Jr. (Aaniiih), Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet of Montana and Métis), N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa), Marcia Pablo (Pend d’Oreille and Kootenai), Ron Parker (Comanche), Dustin Tahmahkera (Comanche) and Germaine White (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes).
THE AMERICAN BUFFALO is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, D.C. Directed by Ken Burns. Written by Dayton Duncan. Produced by Julie Dunfey and Ken Burns, and co-produced by Susan Shumaker. Emily Mosher served as associate producer and Julianna Brannum as consulting producer. Edited by Craig Mellish, ACE; Alex Cucchi, assistant editor. Principal cinematography by Buddy Squires. Narrated by Peter Coyote. The executive in charge for WETA is John F. Wilson. Executive producer is Ken Burns.
Corporate funding for THE AMERICAN BUFFALO was provided by Bank of America. Major funding was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by The Better Angels Society and its following members: The Margaret A. Cargill Foundation fund at the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation; Diane and Hal Brierley; The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment; John and Catherine Debs; Kissick Family Foundation; Fred and Donna Seigel; Jacqueline Mars; John and Leslie McQuown; and Mr. and Mrs. Paul Tudor Jones. Funding was also provided by The Volgenau Foundation.
For more information on the film, visit: https://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/blogs/news/new-ken-burns-film-explores-history-of-the-american-buffalo/
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