MTV gives a platform to Oglala Lakota teens

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, MTV helped seven teens from the Pine Ridge Reservation present their short film

Throughout November, you may have caught a glimpse of a 1:20 short on MTV. The short, “We Got Next,” was directed by seven Oglala Lakota teenagers from the Pine Ridge Reservation.

This year, MTV is showcasing an artful short film made by several Oglala Lakota teenagers in honor of Native American Heritage Month through a partnership with Outlast Arts and Education. Outlast is a program on Pine Ridge that provides opportunities for youth to engage with filmmaking, acting and other aspects of the film industry.

“This partnership with Outlast is a part of our MTV Heritage Month celebration where we turn over our platform to people like this to give them the funds and freedom,” said Rosa White, creative director/brand creative for MTV Entertainment Studios. “This grew from a pitch from Lauren Begay. She told us about her experience. It took a year and a half from the first pitch to seeing things on screen.”

Right now the short is running on MTV’s social media platforms where it will live permanently. It will also be airing throughout November on all MTV networks including Comedy Central, Paramount Network, CMT, Logo, the Smithsonian Channel and more. This year is the third year that MTV has had its Heritage Month celebration initiative.

The film, “We Got Next,” is an artful short depicting life on Pine Ridge. The film shows clips from well-known locations on Pine Ridge such as the Badlands, the Wounded Knee Massacre memorial and the Toby Eagle Bull Memorial Skatepark.

The film subtly brings up issues facing Indigenous people such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous People and the Every Child Matters Movement, which sheds light on Boarding School victims and survivors.

For most of the Outlast crew, growing up they hadn’t experienced positive Indigenous representation in film.

“It was the first time I was actually exposed to film because I had never seen any representation of Native Americans in film, so I didn’t think it was an option for me,” Maliah Weston, one of the teens who worked on the project, said. “While I was at the Outlast camp, the first year we got there, we did a music video for Mato Wayuhi. I was behind the camera during that and I fell in love with it.”

The teens said most of the representation they’d seen came from stories depicting how difficult life on the Pine Ridge Reservation is. Poverty, crime and alcoholism were how they’d seen their people depicted, said Robert Patton, one of the Outlast teens.

Patton was both a director and actor in the short. Patton said that as a group the teens decided they wanted to use their short to not only depict the struggle of life on the reservation but, more importantly, the joy.

“We all combined it together into one film to show how the rez isn’t just some poor place where everyone is miserable. While we aren’t rich in money, we’re rich in culture, family and love, all these things that they don’t see,” Patton said.

Patton was the skateboarder in the short. In one scene, he rides past community member Marie Monroe, who greets him in Lakota. This was a way to not only involve the community in the short but also depict the feeling of community that exists.

Two weeks prior to filming, the teens took classes on film theory, delivery and how to engage the audience.

As a whole, the process was very rewarding, Weston said.

“There’s a lot of physical work. I was running along with Robert while he was skateboarding. We had to deal with hot heat. It was a lot of hard work,” she said.

The cast of the short is comprised of family, friends and community members.

“My grandpa was in it, and some people brought in important people to them,” Weston said.

Also making a cameo in the short is Mato Wayuhi, an Oglala Lakota artist and composer who worked on productions such as “Reservation Dogs” and the full-length, Pine Ridge-based indie film “War Pony.” Wayuhi is an Outlast board member.

Now that the short is over, the Outlast teens are on a college tour of several prominent film-based colleges around the country. They’ve toured colleges such as UCLA, NYU and Chapman University.

Anyone interested in supporting the Outlast program can donate at outlastartsedu.com. All of the work the students have done can also be found on that website, including the short.