September 27, 2023
Excerpt from Press Release on PBS.org
By PBS Publicity
HOMECOMING is an 18-minute film that extends the story of “The American Buffalo: A Film by Ken Burns” to the present day.
HOMECOMING premieres October 18 on PBS.org and PBS App, and will debut on PBS’s YouTube Channel on November 24.
The film follows our initiative’s founder, Jason Baldes, Eastern Shoshone and member of the InterTribal Buffalo Council, who was also an advisor to the Burns Film. In it, he leads the transfers of Buffalo from the city of Denver to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. The film discusses what living among the bison once again means for Native people––today and for future generations.
“For many tribes, including my own, our entire lives were centered on this animal. It had disappeared from our culture for a time, but with the hard work of folks like Jason Baldes and the InterTribal Buffalo Council, we are seeing a powerful rematriation – a return to our traditional lifeways that help to ground us and refocus our attention to the natural world. It was a real honor to witness such a powerful moment in Menominee history when they welcomed back their animal relatives to their lands.” – Julianna Brannum, HOMECOMING Director
The American Buffalo takes viewers on a journey through more than 10,000 years of North American history and across some of the continent’s most iconic landscapes, tracing the mammal’s evolution, its significance to the Great Plains, and, most importantly, its relationship to the Indigenous People of North America.
HOMECOMING takes viewers into the 21st century and examines how the InterTribal Buffalo Council’s Bison Conservation and Transfer Program is supporting Buffalo restoration to the Indigenous people whose lives, spiritually and physically, were inextricably linked to the Buffalo for thousands of years.
WATCH HOMECOMING