BRING THEM HOME Limited Theatrical Stop – Tulsa

“Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya” chronicles a decades-long initiative by members of the Blackfoot Confederacy to bring wild buffalo (Blackfeet: iinnii) back to the Blackfeet Reservation. A thriving wild buffalo population would not only reconnect Blackfeet with a central part of their heritage, spirituality and identity, but would provide economic opportunities and healing for the community. Along the way, however, the initiative faces obstacles from ranchers who see the buffalo as a threat to the cattle ranches that dominate the land and are a legacy of colonization.

“Bring Them Home” examines the deeply meaningful role that buffalo played in Blackfeet life prior to the arrival of settlers who nearly eradicated wild buffalo in an effort to eradicate the Blackfeet people. For Blackfeet, the buffalo are seen not only as fundamental to a healthy ecosystem, but as spiritual relatives. Their removal from the land meant the loss of the Blackfeet way of life, the trauma of which still reverberates today.

In the present day, the film focuses on three main protagonists who are at the heart of the effort to reclaim these traditions through wildlife conservation: Ervin Carlson, director of the Blackfeet Buffalo Program; Paulette Fox, co-creator of the Iinii Initiative; and Leroy Little Bear, a leading tribal elder and educator involved in the Iinii Initiative. They join forces with non-native conservation groups, such as the Wildlife Conservation Society of New York City, who recognize the buffalo as a keystone species not only for Blackfeet lands, but for North America’s ecological stability. Ultimately, they strive to return to the wild a herd of buffalo that are direct descendants of the buffalo that originally inhabited their land.