Hundreds of First Nations people from southern Alberta are being hired for a made-for-TV movie based on the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
The HBO production is casting now for a shoot beginning later this month.
The film is to be directed by Quebec-born Yves Simoneau, who also directed Marie-Antoinette and Nuremberg for TV.
It stars Aidan Quinn and Canadian actor August Schellenberg and chronicles the plight of First Nations people in the U.S. during the days of Sitting Bull and George Custer.
The book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, an Indian history of the American West by Dee Brown, tells of the tragic end of the U.S. Indian wars. It chronicles the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the murders of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and the slaughter of Sioux prisoners at Wounded Knee.
This weekend, Alyson Lockwood of Classic Casting signed up hundreds of people from the Lethbridge, Alta., area to take speaking roles and serve as extras in the production.
“We’ve got battle scenes where we need a large number of horse riders and we’ve got some warrior dance scenes where we’re needing drummers and dancers and singers,” she told CBC Radio.
“And then we’ve got lots of extras we’re going to need for camp scenes and battle scenes. So we’re looking for a large number, probably close to about 2,000 people for the whole show.”
Both veteran actors and relative newcomers were among those applying for work.
Audra Foggin and her sons Cody and Carson all applied together.
All three have acted before in other films featuring native stories, including Dream Keeper and the popular miniseries Into the West, which were also shot in Alberta.
“I was actually cast as a man in Dream Keeper because they didn’t have enough male riders one day,” Foggin said.
Shannon Wells, her husband, Craig, and two-year-old son were all in Dream Keeper.
The pay is outstanding and the work rewarding, but the best part is watching the finished movie, Wells said.
“That was exciting when we had brief glimpses of my son and myself in the movie,” she said. The experience will also be a story to tell her son when he is older, she said.
A further casting call is planned for Friday.
Shooting of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee begins Sept. 20 on the Tsuu T’ina reserve near Calgary. The film is expected to air in 2008.
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