Irene Bedard provided the voice of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American physician, for the documentary “Medicine Woman.â€
Friday morning, the Native actress and activist will again be bringing her words to Nebraska, this time as the speaker for the 10th Chief Standing Bear Breakfast.
Presented by the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, the breakfast, which always honors the Ponca chief, is, this year, also honoring La Flesche.
“The theme of (the breakfast and her talk) is ‘Warriors for the People’ and what does that mean,†Bedard said in a telephone interview from Ohio. “The work I’ve done beyond storytelling in film and television, a lot of that has to do with can we live together. We’re physical, emotional, spiritual beings. We’re not something we can throw a pill at. We’re all connected back seven generations and ahead seven generations. We have to think that way.â€
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Some of Bedard’s work outside film and television has come at the United Nations, where she’s the delegate of the American Indian Enterprise and Business Council, where her work is focused on the rights of indigenous people and sustainability.
Those issues, whether they're food sustainability, health and wellness or the growing potable water crisis, are basically the same that La Flesche faced and relate to “trying to find some balance in the world as indigenous people,†Bedard said.
And, she said, indigenous people have much to add to those efforts.
“We have to transmit indigenous knowledge of how we exist and can exist on the planet and, when we can, take the ancient technology and modern technology and create something that is sustainable for future generations,†she said.
Friday evening, Bedard will be at the Ross Media Arts Center to do a question-and-answer session after the screening of two of her films, “Smoke Signals" and “Songs My Brothers Taught Me.â€
While those stories are set, in whole or in part, on reservations and are about Native characters, Bedard said they have universal appeal.
“The stories there are on a very human level,†she said. “It’s something we all have. We used to sit around a fire and tell stories to each other. Now, our fire is the TV set. With ‘Smoke Signals,’ it’s a story about all of us. We all have to forgive our mothers and fathers for the mistakes they made. It’s the same with ‘Songs My Brothers Taught Me.’ The No. 1 question you get is, ‘Why don’t you just leave the reservation?’ The film looks at that question and looks at it deeply.â€
Bedard, an Alaska native and an “Inupiaq/Yupik/Cree/French Canadian daughter, mother, human being†is best known for a role in which she did not appear on screen, providing the voice for and serving as the model of the title character in the 1997 animated film, “Pocahontas.â€
“It’s Disney,†Bedard said. “Because of that, it’s a generational thing. The kids who saw that in ‘95 are the millennials now. It’s interesting to see their take on where we’re going in the world. It’s something that’s touched a lot of people, but it still continues to carry questions of historical accuracy and inaccuracy.â€
A decade later, Bedard revisited the Pocahontas story, playing her mother in “The New World,†a film from the acclaimed enigmatic director Terrence Malick, who made “Badlands,†the 1974 film loosely based on the story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate.
Malick was so impressed by Bedard that he wrote a part for her in his next film, 2011’s “The Tree of Life.â€
So busy that she hasn’t had an opportunity to go home to Alaska in over a year, Bedard just finished the pilot for “Scalped,†a WGN America show based on a graphic novel series in which she plays, appropriately, a Native activist.
On June 22, “The Mist,†a series based on a Stephen King story in which Bedard appears, will premiere on Spike TV. And Bedard, who has two production companies, has two producing projects that will start filming next year.