Posted by Jim Sheridan to co-direct new historical drama on Native American c
11/04/2023
Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan has announced that he is set to co-direct the anticipated historical drama I Am A Man: The True Story of Chief Standing Bear.
Mr Sheridan is set to co-direct, write and produce the film alongside Andrew Troy, whose credits include Salinger. The film will depict the ‘Trial of Tears’ led by Ponca Chief Standing Bear, which led to the landmark court case Standing Bear v USA in 1879.
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The film, which has been given Resolutions of Support from the Ponca Tribe, will showcase the largely unknown court case, which gave Native Americans legal recognition as ‘human beings’ — which, in turn, set legal precedent for future civil rights matters in US courts.
‘Standing Bear has been completely left out of our school text books,’ Mr Troy said of the film. ‘Traveling the country, I learned that even Native people are unfamiliar with his name and the impact he had on their lives. Chief Standing Bear’s story needs to be told.’
‘I am delighted to be working with Andrew on this wonderful project,’ Mr Sheridan added.
Back in 2019, joint members of US Congress unveiled a statue of Chief Standing Bear in a bipartisan unveiling in the US Capitol — making Chief Standing Bear one of the first Native American persons to be inducted into Statuary Hall.
The film has also seen backing from the Nebraska Legislature, which granted $5million to production. Production incentives have also been given by the Cherokee Nation Film Office, and Screen Ireland.
The film will be jointly produced by Mr Troy’s banner Troy Entertainment and Sheridan’s Ireland-based Hell’s Kitchen Limited along with producers Luca Matrundola and longtime Anonymous Content executive Paul Green.
Executive Producers are Warren Anzalone, Bart Daly, and former Nebraska Senators Colby Coash and Burke Harr. Casting Director is Rene Haynes who recently cast Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, the Amazon series The English, and Prey, the Native American-themed prequel to the Predator franchise.
Standing Bear was born around 1829 in the traditional Ponca homeland near the confluence of the Niobrara and Missouri rivers. About thirty years later, the tribe sold its homeland to the United States, retaining a 58,000-acre reservation between Ponca Creek and the Niobrara River
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