Purchase at:  https://www.films.com/ecTitleDetail.aspx?TitleID=13926&r=SR

“I have written, directed and produced a documentary film titled, “The Sand Creek Massacre,” a dark day in American and Colorado history. It has won many awards. It has been screened and aired in nearly every major city in the country. It has been cataloged into the Smithsonian. It has been screened in elementary, middle school, college, universities, before veterans groups, Indian groups, organizations, corporations, and a host of local community groups interested in helping people learn, through the film, about racism and hate so that they can elevate their understanding about these two devastating beliefs to improve community relations with everyone. You can see more information about it at http://www.sandcreekmassacre.net. You can also watch a modified version of the film below:

I would like to invite you to create venues so that I can come show the film and answer questions about the subject matter of the film. I made the film to give the Cheyenne and Arapaho people a voice. They tell the Sand Creek Massacre story in the film. It is very revealing and very compelling, Please contact me so that we can work out screenings of the film.”

Contact Information: dvasicek@earthlink.net – 303-903-2103 – SKYPE donaldlvasicek

Southern Cheyenne Chief Laird (Whistling Eagle) Cometsevah

“The Other Side of Racism and Hate”

by

Donald L. Vasicek

So, there was this hot, windy day in Oklahoma City, May 25, 2017, which was the beginning of learning a lesson about racism and hate that parallels that of the hate groups in America today. I should’ve known better before I accepted an invitation to come here to speak at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Veterans Memorial Day Service and to screen my award-winning documentary film, “The Sand Creek Massacre”. I should have known better because since I wrote, directed and produced the film, I have looked intothe eyes of racism and hate over and over and over during screenings and appearances in every major city in the U. S.  It is a most chilling experience.

The Director of Cheyenne and Arapaho Veteran Services, a personable Cheyenne man with coal black, wavy hair, and smooth light brown skin with a dynamic personality, kindly drove me to each location where I was to be. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Complex in El Reno, Oklahoma was our first stop.  When we walked into this massive-sized hall, he left me to myself to attend to his job responsibilities. As I scanned the huge room, I saw numerous Cheyenne and Arapaho people milling around. I did not see 1 white person. It gave me a feeling of fear.

Suddenly, several Cheyenne and Arapaho people swarmed me.  They introduced themselves, said they were excited to meet me. They had made up flyers and posted them all over Oklahoma City, El Reno and Concho, Oklahoma, in anticipation of my appearance. Each person wanted something different from me. One man asked me to sign 7 different posters of me with my photo and Sand Creek Massacre film poster along with my bio on the posters. Another, Larry, a Cheyenne man wearing a fedora, sunglasses and a white patch of hair at the crease in his chin, wanted to talk with me about the Sand Creek Massacre and his ancestors who were there, and survived.  A Cheyenne woman print journalist asked to interview me after I gave my speech.  3 other Cheyenne woman asked me for copies of the film. A trim and handsome Cheyenne man who is a re-known forensic face expert, introduced himself to me. He creates “faces” from dead bodies so that it helps law enforcement identify dead bodies.  Meeting him was exciting because I read true crime books and watch true crime t.v. shows. He has been mentioned in some of the books and shows.

After several men and kids sitting in a circle around drums played and sang 3 songs in Cheyenne, a Cheyenne and Arapaho color guard presented its colors. There were 3 Cheyenne and Arapaho speakers, 1 of whom was the Lt. Governor of Oklahoma and a USMC member. When I spoke I commended the 6 Cheyenne and Arapaho men who told their story in “The Sand Creek Massacre” film, particularly those who served America in the military service. In an attempt to establish some common ground with the audience, possibly 1 to 200, all of whom were Cheyenne and Arapaho with the exception of a white camera person taping the service, I mentioned Trump by saying that there was a racist and bigot who lived in the White House.

When my speech was over, there were echoes of applause. I write, echoes, because they were few who applauded me. But those who did, their applause bounced off the walls of the massive-sized room. My film was turned on for everyone to watch (there were about 200 people there). While the film was playing, sitting alone, I started eating my box lunch, while a Cheyenne print journalist interviewed me for her newspaper. Then, 6 Cheyenne men came up to me.  They pulled out chairs.  The sat down and circled all the way around me.  I ended up sitting in the middle of them, you know, like I was being attacked like Indian’s attacked whites encroaching on their lands during the 18^th & 19^th centuries, who circled their wagon trains to protect themselves from the attacks.

The spokesman a burly, intimidating man with an angry look on his face, whom I’ll call Mr. X, told me with no blinking of eyes that I was exploiting their people by having made this film and distributing it.  He asked me who gave me permission to make the film. I told him I traveled to Clinton, Oklahoma, Lame Deer, Montana and Wind River, Wyoming Cheyenne and Arapaho reservations and appeared before Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal councils to get permission to make the film.  They approved it.  The angry man told me that a PBS t.v. station came down to Oklahoma to shoot footage for a Sand Creek Massacre story.  He said they promised his people and him that they would pay them, which they never did.

As I looked around the circle, and met each man head on in their eyes, and stone-cold faces, I saw that their pupils were black. Like the eyes of a snake, motionless, angry, maybe fearful, they stared right through me like laser beams burning holes in my very being. Fear drove me to attack.

I told them they were insulting my integrity and professionalism.  I told them that I made the film to provide a voice for their people. I said there was never any intention to make any money off of the film or to acquire fame because of it, something Cheyenne and Arapaho people on other reservations had confronted me with before. I went on to say I hadn’t made any money from sales of the film, that I was still paying for its production out of my own pocket, and that I would never make any money on the film.

We proceeded to have a stare down.  I wasn’t going to blink or move. I thought, “fuck them”.  They owe me an apology.  Finally, Mr. X stood up.  The other 5 men stood up.  He offered his hand to me, as well as each of the other men.  We shook hands. Each of the other men shook my hand. They smiled. They showed me respect. Mr. X thanked me and said that they no longer had a problem with me making the film.   The forensic face man asked me where he could get a copy of my film so that he could show it in classrooms for appearances he makes in schools.

That evening I screened the film at the Concho, Oklahoma Community Center.  There were 50 chairs, all of which were filled, with Cheyenne and Arapaho people.  I was the only white person there.  After my speech and the screening, 2 different people attacked me for making the film. A Cheyenne woman.  An Arapaho man.

The Cheyenne woman was right in front of me, feet away.  I have never, ever, faced anyone with such a hating look that she gave me.  It was chilling.  I really believed that she wanted to take me out.  She ranted about how white people treat the Jews by building monuments for them, giving them money, helping them out with training and jobs, but they do nothing for the Cheyenne and Arapaho people.  She asked me, “Why is that? Why are whites helping the Jews, but not us” as though it was my fault.

I told her that I made this film as a voice for her people. I told her that other white people have helped create organizations in colleges and universities for America’s indigenous people to further their education. I told that there are companies and corporations who have and are creating jobs for America’s indigenous people. I told her that there are many groups of white people who stand up for America’s indigenous people. I told her there are television and radio programs that have their doors open to America’s indigenous people. I said that there are a multitude of white people who donate money and time to help America’s indigenous people get places to live, food to eat and transportation.

She said, “That isn’t enough.”

I was unable to take my eyes off of her eyes. Her pupils were small and black, shaped like inverted almonds. The hate that emanated from her eyes terrified me. I was stunned by it. I was thinking that she was going to pull out a knife and stab me. She showed so much hate towards me. I was about to step back from her when I was suddenly able to look through the hate in her eyes. On the other side of the hate, I saw the look of betrayal, of sadness, of a loving woman who was devastated by the trust by her ancestors that was broken by white people many years ago and continues to exist today, even to the point of genocide. It was at that point that I saw her vulnerability.

I asked her, “What is enough?” She blinked her eyes then. Tears filled them. Mine were on the brink of tears. She smiled. She reached out her hand to me. She thanked me for making the film. I wanted to open my arms up to her, to hug her, but the fear was still there even though, for the first time in my long odyssey with “The Sand Creek Massacre” film, which has taken me to nearly every state in the country for screenings, speaking appearances, questions and answer sessions on radio and television, traveling to schools, colleges, universities, organizations, corporations, film festivals, etc., I felt as though I had finally found some common ground with racism and hate.

I will always remember the little 4^th grade girl who watched the film with 73 parents, faculty and students at Walnut Hills Elementary School in Centennial, Colorado. She asked me, “Why do people hate Indians?” I was speechless. Now, I could answer her question better than I did then. And what do any of us have, if we do not have love in our hearts for human beings?

For Immediate Release
Centennial, CO, United States of America March 11, 2014
GOLDEN DROVER WINNER TO SHOOT NEW FILM

March 7, 2014 (Centennial, CO) – Donald L. Vasicek, who won the Golden Drover Award for Best Film (Native American) (“The Sand Creek Massacre”) at the Trail Dance Film Festival and also winner at The IndieFest Film Festival and The American Indian Film Festival, has signed a LOI with Iron Violet Films (I.V.F.), a division of the parent company: Iron Violet Productions, to write, direct and produce a feature film along with his film company, Olympus Films+, LLC.

Titled, “The Captain”, it is a story about Captain Silas Soule who risked his own life in his quest to save African­Americans from slavery, and the Cheyenne tribe from annihilation, during the Sand Creek Massacre. I. V. F. is headquartered in Shreveport, Louisiana, also known as “Hollywood South”, where nearly 220 major motion pictures and shows have been shot. It boasts three motion picture studios and sound stages in the region. Broadway producer, Marcinho Savant, is executive producing “The Captain.” I.V.F.’s anticipated film releases include, “The Tracks”, “Birthday Pie”, and “Brookwater’s Curse” with Mr. Savant (CEO) serving as Creative Consultant and Executive Producer.

Savant said, “One of America’s greatest, muted, stains. Some would have it swept away, like so many grains of blood­soaked sand. I’m honored and grateful to be collaborating with Donald on this important film. His passion, has become my own. I’m honored to play some, small, role in telling the truth, for the benefit of the Cheyenne, and Arapaho victims of this horrendous slaughter. Captain Soule was a pioneering Abolitionist who befriended the indigenous people. I suspect he’d be thrilled to know that the truth will, finally, be told.”

Vasicek said, “It is past due time to make a feature film about Silas Soule, let alone the Sand Creek Massacre. Mr. Soule’s bravery and courage to face and elevate himself about the racism and hate that drove people to brutalize, murder, rape, mutilate and terrorize slaves and America’s indigenous people reigns as a shining example of heroism for all Americans and the world. I am honored and blessed to have become part of this film with Iron Violet Films and the talented Mr. Savant.”

Vasicek said an upcoming press release will give an update for the production schedule. The pre­production website address is The Captain” Movie. Please contact Vasicek via e­Mail, 303­903­2103 or Mr. Savant via e­Mail , 318­402­4697 x 705 for more information.
###
CONTACTS:
Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC e­Mail
303­903­2103
Marcinho Savant
Iron Violet Films e­Mail 318­402­4697, x 705
ADDITIONAL INFO:
1. Information on the Production Partners
2. Information on the Sand Creek Massacre (Inspiration)


“On the day of the attack. He asked me many questions about the chiefs who were there, and if I could recognize them if I saw them. I told him it was possible I might recollect the principal chiefs. They were terribly mutilated, lying there in the water and sand; most of them in the bed of the creek, dead and dying, making many struggles. They were so badly mutilated and covered with sand and water that it was very hard for me to tell one from another. However, I recognized some of them – among them the chief One Eye, who was employed by our government at $125 a month and rations to remain in the village as a spy. There was another called War Bonnet, who was here two years ago with me. There was another by the name of Standing-in-the-Water, and I supposed Black Kettle was among them, but it was not Black Kettle. There was one there of his size and dimensions in every way, but so tremendously mutilated that I was mistaken in him. I went out with Lieutenant Colonel Bowen, to see how many I could recognize.”

Photo by Navajo Filmmaker Shonie de la Rosa. – Click on Photo to see all of it.

Donald L. Vasicek
Writer/Director/Producer of the award-winning documentary film, “The Sand Creek Massacre”
http://www.sandcreekmassacre.net

And for all of you media people out there, remember this, the most powerful kind of journalism is objective journalism. Anything less than that is writing and broadcasting with a Hollywood mentality. Don’t forget that.

Let’s get this right, folks. It’s time.

“We’ve used a passive approach to the telling of the brutality at Sand Creek for the purpose of showing the ignorance of utilizing killing as a means to solve problems. Violence always leaves an impact, but the graphicness of the murders, the rapes, the mutilations, even after people were dead, leaves a remarkable imprint on students, parents, and educators. They see an historic reality that motivates them to do more to circumvent violence in the present as a means to solve problems. And that includes fourth graders who viewed the film in an elementary school in Centennial, Colorado who shared their thoughts with me after the screening.”

-Donald L. Vasicek
Award-Winning Writer/Filmmaker/Consultant

“We Cannot Be Who We Are Not” “Always keep in mind that the main issue which has led to so many other issues is land. The earth has always been the Cheyenne/Arapaho’s power. As their lands dwindled because of European immigration, their power dwindled.  Today, most older, and many younger Native Americans are living without that power. Instead, they are living on reservations that yield little, ifany resources. This has reduced Native Americans
to a cross between their native heritage and the incursion of others into their space. Many know little about moving forward, because the past is where all of their power resides, and, it is gone.

Native Americans are born to roam the earth.  Many of their ancestors went where the buffalo went. The buffalo were the source of their existence. In the beginning, the Cheyenne and Arapaho people had 51 million acres of land. They were free. They lived with the elements and they prospered. Today, most conceive themselves as prisoners of a society that has little bearing to who they really are, what they inherited from their ancestors, not too unlike each one of us.  How can we be who we are not? The answer is, we cannot be who we are not, and until we discover who we are, then live that way, is when we experience the ultimate peace of who we are. It is my belief that most Native Americans are not who the society they live in forces
them to be, in order to survive.

So, if you surround yourself with this attitude, with this approach, with this theme, then, everything else you are being asked about which to understand, will fall into place.”

-Donald L. Vasicek

“Award-Winning Sand Creek Massacre Film Archived”

August 27, 2008 — CENTENNIAL, CO — Golden Drover Award winner for Best Native American Film in the Trail Dance Film Festival, “The Sand Creek Massacre”, has been archived in The Billie Jean Baguley Library in the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

Award-winning Writer/Filmmaker/Consultant, Donald L. Vasicek,
said, “By having the film archived in these prestigious institutions,
my goal of informing, educating and creating awareness for the
Cheyenne and Arapaho people via their oral histories in the film,
helps all American native people. The Cheyenne and Arapaho
people, vowed, after the Sand Creek Massacre, that they would live
on this earth forever. The film keeps their dream alive regardless
of the genocide that has stalked all American native people from
the inception of European people’s arrival on their lands to the present.
The film is a permanent recording of their ancestors and who they are as
a people.”

Vasicek continues his efforts to record the Cheyenne and Arapaho
history. He has placed, “Ghosts of Sand Creek”, a two-hour, six
episode series, into development. Vasicek said, “Ghosts of Sand
Creek” will dimensionalize the Cheyenne and Arapaho people’s
story. It will show the white man’s continuing invasion of their human
rights.

“I read recently where actor Brad Pitt raised $500,000 for
people in Darfur. He should now raise money for American native
people so that they can also eat. Walk down the main street
in Lame Deer, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne’s reservation.
Cruise the Northern Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
American natives on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
need groceries, socks, underwear, shirts, shoes, trousers, fuel to
keep warm, etc. And they have to go across the border into
Nebraska to buy liquor. You will experience, as I have, many times
over, the abject poverty American natives experience. This is
genocide at its finest in all centuries.”

Vasicek said, “America’s native people need America’s help. Be part
of ‘Ghosts of Sand Creek’.” Go to donvasicek.com for details.

Contact:

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net

“When I walked up to the crematorium, I traced the steps of prisoners who could
no longer work or work, like women, children, elders, the sick, prisoners who were gay,
prisoners who were gypsies and other “throwaways”, as Nazis often called them.

“The first room was the room where prisoners had to strip themselves naked.  Then, they
walked to the next room, which had a lower ceiling than the rooms in the rest of the building
and no windows.  They were told they were going to take showers, but instead, poison
pellets were dropped into the room in two hinged box-like containers in one wall that
were filled with the pellets from outside of the building.”

Think about that.  Just think about that.

“The next room was the crematorium.  I stood in front of the ovens as the tour guide
explained that towards the end of the war (World War II), the Nazis escalated the job, or
as they called, the final solution.  They backlogged at Dachau.  The tour guide showed us
how bodies were piled up, both inside and outside of the crematorium waiting to be
burned.  Pictures taken at the time were prominent there.

I stepped back from the photos.  I realized that anywhere I stepped, I stepped where
Nazis and people condemned to death by ignorance had either once stood, or lay.  I
know I am unique, different, because there is no one else who is me.  I just don’t like
the idea that killing is a solution to solving problems.  Genocide is ignorance based on
fear.  And according to some, fear is the second most powerful human emotion next to love.

The tour guide mentioned that the German people, as recent as 1999, had decided to
“come out” with their horrific past.  German children are now required to study World War II
Nazism and come to the camps to learn.  The tour guide said the reason the German people
had waited so long to “come out” was because of their shame for the
terror  and devastation the Nazis had perpetuated on millions of others.”

It is time, now, for the American people to do the same thing.  We must come out
of our shame and stop genocide in America.  That is the very least we can
do for the native people of America.  Our children must learn about native people,
their cultures, their history, and who they are as human beings so that they can relate
to them as human beings.

No one is better than anyone else regardless of achievements, social standing, religion ,
culture, race and/or material wealth. We are one because  we are human.  We are a collectiveness
consciousness.  When we hurt someone, we  damage that consciousness.  This, in turn, causes
all human beings to lose some of the positive energy this kind of
consciousness brings to each one of us. 

If one isn’t convinced, walk in the hidden recesses of a building next to Princes Gracht Canal
in Amsterdam where thirteen year-old Anne Frank hid from the Nazis with her family for three
years until they were betrayed and sent to camps. Walk in the rooms.
I did.  Guess what?  Anne Frank was a talented girl, a writer, a young person with
dreams and goals.  A Jewish girl who loved her family more than anything else
in her world.  A human being.

Feel her there.  Feel the terror.  Anne Frank, at age sixteen, died from typhoid in a concentration
camp because of ignorance fueled by fear.  Genocide in its finest form.

Then, there is the Sand Creek Massacre.  I’ve been at the site several times.  Sat in the grass
by Sand Creek, camera in hand, alone, recording sounds, the sun warm on my back.  I felt like
others were there.  You know, invisible, but there.  Perhaps apparitions, if I looked hard enough.
On November 29, 1964, there were over five-hundred Cheyenne lodges there, perhaps a thousand
or so Cheyenne people, seven-hundred soldiers, their horses, their equipment, their canons,
their guns, their sabers, and Indian dogs and horses.  Their ignorance.  Their fear.  Their  hate.
And there was murder there.  Rape. Mutilations.  Carnage.

There is a prominent person who has done work at the Sand Creek Massacre Site.  I asked
her if she ever “felt” anything while she was there doing her work.  She said, “No, not really, but I’ll
never go out to the site at night.”  I asked her why.  She said, “I don’t know why, I just won’t go.”

You might want to check it out, see how it makes you feel.  Perhaps it can remove you,
even for a moment, from your reality and plunge you in the depths of losing sight of who
human beings, all human beings really are, human beings, just like you and me.

####

Contact:

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103


One Story of Horror At Sand Creek Duncan Kerr, the scout, found the body of One Eye lying near the camp.

“Some of the boys had scalped him, ” Kerr wrote, “but they either did not understand how to take a scalp, or their knives were very dull, for they had commenced to take the scalp off at the top of the head, and torn a strip down to the middle of the neck.”

A short distance beyond, he found One Eye’s wife sitting alone in a buffalo wallow: “I went up to her and laid my hand on her head. She looked up quietly, and recognizing me said; ‘How de do Dunk, me heap dry. Gib me some water.’

I asked in the Cheyenne language, if she was seriously hurt. She replied by throwing the blanket back and showing me aghastly wound in her side, through which the entrails were protruding. The wound must have been caused by a fragment of a shell.  I gave her a drink of water, and left my canteen. As I turned to leave, she took my hand to detain me, and begged me to shoot her with my gun….But I could not do it, for I had known her a long time; a lively, sprightly, mischievous, little thing, that fairly worshipped her Chief One Eye.

This is the squaw that One Eye brought into Ft. Lyon with him and was on our trip after the captives. When she saw I would not kill her she covered up her head and began singing her death song again….I had not gone very far, when I met a soldier.  I pointed her out to him, and told him I had just shot and wounded an Indian and had fired my last shot; that the Indian was badly wounded, and could not help himself, and I wanted him to creep up behind the Indian and shoot him in the back of the head. The fellow crept up close behind her and shot her dead….
-“Sand Creek: Tragedy and Symbol Pt. 1” G.L.Roberts, 1984

Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado