The documentary "Sacred Steps: Remembering Sand Creek" premiered in Oklahoma City on June 4, 2015. Photo from Cheyenne Arapaho Television / Facebook

CATV releases new documentary, Sacred Steps: Remembering Sand Creek
By Rosemary Stephens, Editor-in-Chief
Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribal Tribune

The theatre lights dim.

The big screen flashes solid black with bold white type.

“On November 29, 1864 Col. John Chivington led an attack against a group of Cheyenne and Arapaho camped in Southeast Colorado. Chivington and his soldiers killed approximately 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho people – mostly women, children, and elders. Many of those killed were also mutilated.”

The bluesy sound of musician Otis Taylor fades in with his rendition of Sand Creek Massacre Mourning, capturing everyone in the audience.

The documentary premiered June 4 at Harkins Theatre in Oklahoma City. A total of 266 tickets were distributed for the first showing, with 100 tickets reserved for elders only.

Last November, Cheyenne and Arapaho television crew joined over 100 tribal members in Colorado to observe a week of events honoring the 150th commemoration of the Sand Creek Massacre.

"Sacred Steps: Remembering Sand Creek" is a behind-the-scenes look at that week. Through interviews with tribal elders, runners, and observers, the audience will gain an understanding of the emotions Sand Creek evokes. From the opening ceremonies, each day of the Healing Run, the candle light vigil, and the last day’s walk through downtown Denver, Sacred Steps brings these experiences to life.

A view of the big screen from the Oklahoma City premiere. Photo by Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribal Tribune

“We just started shooting everything out there and we came back with over 20 plus hours of stuff, and I thought, ‘I can do something with this.’ You know if I had known it was going to be on a big screen we would have shot some things differently, who knew?” Darren Brown, CATV producer laughed.

He said the documentary was a team effort, combining footage shot by freelancer Lance Rivas, Mark Welch, CATV producer and Randy Burleson, director of CATV.

“I am so proud of my crew that produced this film. Darren Brown did an awesome job editing this piece and the whole crew did an awesome job of shooting all the footage,” Burleson said as he stood in the lobby of the theatre shaking hands and being congratulated by guests. “The hardest job was trying to pull out all the stuff to make a one hour piece, and there was a lot of good stuff that wasn’t used. But we had to make some cuts and do some things, trim out some things. It took Darren a couple of months to edit this thing and the end result is just awesome.”

A poster for "Sacred Steps: Remembering Sand Creek." Image from Cheyenne Arapaho Television / Facebook

The film gives the viewer an inside look at the actual Healing Run, following along with the Cheyenne and Arapaho youth who participated, interviews from descendants of the massacre, who give details of events that occurred during that tragic day, as handed down from their family members, as well as the historical apology given to the Cheyenne and Arapaho people by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper during the closing ceremonies on the Colorado State Capitol.

“When you are out there at the site those emotions are real and I know when we walked down to the site to the creek bed to do some interviews, I felt those emotions … they are extremely real,” Brown said. “What I tried to do with this documentary is to give you a taste of what it was like. Many of you here tonight were there for maybe one of the first half of the journey in Eads or the second half of the journey at the capitol in Denver, and I know a lot of you didn’t get to see the runners and their journey. Tonight you will.”

Sacred Steps will begin airing on CATV47 in July. It will also be aired on their affiliate station FNX, with talks being in the works for airing on OETA.

Future showings of the documentary are being planned for several communities in the upcoming months, and copies of the one-hour documentary are available through CATV television.

For a copy of the DVD, please call (405) 422-7924.