Film about Chickasaw Nation’s Te Ata Debuts
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) – Kim Torress is in the movies, though she never expected that’s where her business would take her.
Torress, who owns Nosh Restaurant and Catering Creations, has been traveling the state taking food to film crews.
"It’s been very fun,” she said. "We’ve met a lot of neat people. I’ve become Facebook friends with a lot of the crew.”
Torress has worked her way up in the film business, starting on smaller pictures and now serving food to larger productions.
She’s been serving moviemakers since 2010. Her business started in 2009, and at that time it was close to the Actor Factory casting agency. The agency’s director, Chris Freihofer, recommended Torress to a crew, she was hired for the gig, and she’s been working in the industry since.
She spent eight weeks in 2014 traveling to small towns in Oklahoma with the Chickasaw Nation’s Te Ata. The film had its world premiere recently at the Warren Theatre in Moore.
Torress traveled to Sulphur, Guthrie, Tishomingo, and the Oklahoma Railway Museum in Oklahoma City. The eight weeks of work gave her business a 15-percent revenue boost.
"I was able to get a new catering vehicle because of it,” she said. "It was a nice little shot in the summer.”
The film has been a work of the Chickasaw Nation’s since 2011 when the tribe’s creative development director, Jeannie Barbour, started researching Te Ata.
"It began as Gov. (Bill) Anoatubby’s vision,” Barbour told The Journal Record. "He really wanted to build a department around the idea - and several projects around the idea - that we tell our stories about our people, our places, our history, from our perspective.”
Born Mary Thompson Fisher and raised in Tishomingo, Te Ata traveled the world during the early 20th century, telling Native Americans’ stories. President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, invited her to the White House for his first state dinner. She lived to be almost 100 years old, passing away in 1995.
"It was really tough to choose what parts of her life we wanted to use,” Barbour said. "Her life was so rich and eventful.”
Barbour traveled to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in New York to view the collections, so she could learn more about Te Ata.
Barbour worked with a screenwriter who helped put her story into script format. It was sent to agents who represent Native American actors, and a casting call for Chickasaw and other tribal citizens was issued for extras.
The film was shot in less than 30 days and the title song was recorded in one day.
Chickasaw Nation Productions received more than $400,000 in film rebates from the Oklahoma Film and Music Office. The company qualified for an additional 2 percent in rebate money since the title song was made in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma Film and Music Office Director Tava Maloy Sofsky said films are made statewide, and not just in Guthrie’s historic downtown, as some people claim. Cities that have seen film work include Okarche, Luther and Bartlesville. A web series called In the Rough was shot in Kingston.
While Te Ata appears to take place in several locations, the filmmakers used Oklahoma sites and computer-generated effects on existing buildings in order to make it look like a different place.
The movie was also able to use historic buildings, including the Masonic Lodge in Guthrie, the Chickasaw National Capitol and the Chickasaw White House in Tishomingo.
"Oklahoma is just the coolest because we have such diversity with terrains and with structures,” Sofsky said. "If we don’t have it exactly - that’s why it’s called a movie. That’s why there’s an arts department.”
Anoatubby said he’s glad the tribe could tell Te Ata’s story. There’s already been a book and a documentary released about her.
"She was a significant figure not only to the Chickasaw but to Native Americans everywhere,” he said. "I believe future generations will be inspired by her.”
Barbour said she thinks people not familiar with Te Ata should see the film because the message will encourage them to pursue their dreams like she did.
"During the 1920s and 1930s, as a young, small girl from Oklahoma, she achieved just momentous things,” she said. "It’s a story that young girls can embrace: through hard work and that vision of what you want to achieve in life, it can happen.”
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Information from: The Journal Record, http://www.journalrecord.com