Rhythm of the Heart - Native American - Buffalo - Plains - Sioux

Song title is "Rhythm of the Heart" composed by "Ah Nee Mah." Using clips from various western films and documentaries, my short feature is an interpretation of the strong, unbinding links among Plains natives, bison, their Great Spirit, and a young man's reflection of his ancestors' lives of times long past and all that is lost to him. The American bison once numbered at least 100 million across the Great Plains of Canada and the United States. A roaring thunder of herds traveling across the plains was the lifeblood of Great Plains natives, using every part of the bison to sustain them and never taking more than they needed. Nearly driving them to extinction, the herds were systematically killed by greedy settlers from Europe and left to rot for the sole purpose of either starving the natives to death or by forcing them to move onto tiny Plains reservations, enslaving them forever to live far away from their stolen lands and way of life. All the gold, silver, copper, coal, timber, etc. taken by the Europeans belongs to them, yet the Plains Natives are now the poorest of poor, forced to live far from their beautiful and magnificent land of plenty. It's a sorrowful, heartbreaking reflection with no happy ending.