INTERVIEW: First-time director, actor explore ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me’

Songs My Brothers Taught Me, which recently opened at Film Forum in New York City, tells the story of Johnny Winters (John Reddy) and his sister, Jashaun (Jashaun St. Jones), as they learn about life and love in the Badlands of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Poverty and alcoholism are problems for several members of the community, and the children, including Johnny and Jashaun, sometimes have to sit back and watch their extended family fall apart.

Even though Johnny and Jashaun are the closest characters in the film, they actually have several siblings. Their common father dies in a fire, and this causes the community to come together in mourning. It also has Johnny thinking about his future and the prospects of moving to Los Angeles with his girlfriend, Aurelia (Taysha Fuller). Leaving his mother (Irene Bedard) doesn’t seem like it would be difficult; she has been distant for years and struggles with alcohol. But leaving Jashaun and leaving his heritage weighs on the high school student.

Songs My Brothers Taught Me stands as a visual testimony to the unique culture and stories of the Badlands and Great Plains. From rodeos to stunning vistas to harsh winds, the setting is an integral part of the characters’ lives and the audience’s understanding of the story.

“I was really interested in the idea of what life is like on a reservation for a young person because that experience they have is the polar opposite of my growing up experience, having left my home, and having drifted my whole life and not felt strongly enough about one place that I call home,” said Chloé Zhao, the writer and director of Songs My Brothers Taught Me. “And then getting to know the young people where they have such a strong, complex relationship with the community and their land, and this place is called a reservation. I find this whole thing very interesting and complex, and I don’t think it has been explored that much. So that’s why I wanted to tell this particular story.”

Zhao spent a lot of time on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with the Lakota Native Americans, getting to know the community and tinkering with several drafts of the script. In fact, the story took three years to write, and financing issues caused numerous delays. At one point, with only 10 percent of the budget in place, Zhao discarded an earlier draft of the script and wrote a different, streamlined film. It wasn’t until Oscar winner Forest Whitaker entered the picture as a producer that the financing fell into line.

Today, the film has been critically embraced, and Zhao was nominated for Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.

“By the end, when we wrapped, we knew we captured some really, really great moments,” Zhao said of the filming. ” But … all of us thought that no one is going to see this movie. We didn’t even have money for post-production at the time until Forest Whitaker’s company came out, and we got some more grants to fund our post. But we never thought we were going to go Sundance or Cannes just because of the way we made the film, and especially with the Spirit Awards and now the New York premiere, I almost felt like sometimes we’re being sort of put into a category that people thought we had a lot of money to make an independent film with Forest’s name attached.”

For St. John and Zhao, Songs My Brothers Taught Me marks their cinematic debut.

“It was fun because it was my first time acting,” St. John said. “I met a lot of new people from this experience and made lots of friends. … I just really like this story because I actually have an older brother and lots of other siblings.”

St. John admitted that she was nervous when the cameras started rolling, and she wasn’t used to the whole process of what it takes to make a film come to life.

“The first thing we shot was actually her [St. John] and a friend of hers, the scene where she was hanging out with the girl with the red hair,” Zhao said. “And even looking back, we thought she was younger in that scene than she was in the other scenes because I think there’s just that innocence of never-being-on-the-screen kind of vibe to it, but it was a lot of fun because both of the girls had a good laugh.”

Zhao was introduced to the people on the reservation through their communal gatherings and important holidays on the calendar. “I just went to all of the events,” she said. “I … taught little creative writing classes in their high schools. I pretty much spent most of my first three years before I started shooting on the reservation, and everybody is related. So once you got to know a couple people, very quickly everybody knows you. For Johnny, I collected a lot of high school yearbooks, and I went through all of them. And I found him actually that way, and Jashaun, I met her at the Veterans Day powwow, one of the powwows. I saw her dancing.”

Films about Native Americans are sometimes rare, especially films that go as deep as Songs My Brothers Taught Me. This coming-of-age tale is that unique example of a realistic story that features several of the issues challenging Native American communities. From issues of poverty and crime to family love and tradition, the movie packs a lot of content into 90 minutes. However, Zhao is also interested in the universality of Johnny and Jashaun’s story.

“Before I even went to the reservation, I did some other research and watched movies,” Zhao said. “The majority of things that I saw … was kind of shot quite from a distance. … [It was important for me to] find that common ground for these young people, similarities between them and young people all over the world, and I did find that. Their struggles, though very specific to the reservation life, but there is some similarities to all young people coming of age from places that are remote from big cities. So I have people and friends coming up to tell me that they feel similar things.”

The result is deeply personal for St. John and the cast members. For example, the house fire depicted in the film was actually the house of St. John’s grandfather. It was the house she grew up in.

“There’s so much reality in the film,” Zhao said. “We try to include that into the narrative as much as possible. … For Jashaun, there’s a couple of moments she really has to relive or face something that’s happened in her real life. I think those are hard for her. … These kids are incredibly strong, and we all as a crew are extremely inspired by them.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Songs My Brothers Taught Me is currently playing the Film Forum in New York City. Click here for more information.