Cherokee filmmaker dives into Oklahoma Superfund Site in short film 'Meet Me at the Creek'

Cherokee filmmaker Loren Waters didn't anticipate just how strongly she would feel connected to the land while working on her short film "Meet Me at the Creek."

"As tribal people, we were removed from our homelands to be in northeastern Oklahoma. So, it wasn't a place we wanted to be. But we have to make it work," said Waters , who is also a citizen of the Kiowa Tribe .

"Our connection to place is so important, because that's where we harvest our food. It's where we harvest our basket-weaving materials. It's where we go to water for ceremony. So, whenever we can't have those things, we can't practice our culture."

In June, the Tulsa-based director, who has worked behind the scenes on major Oklahoma productions like "Reservation Dogs," "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Fancy Dance," showcased her second short documentary at Oklahoma City's 24th annual deadCenter Film Festival.

Now, Waters is routing her lyrical 10-minute documentary back to Tulsa, where it will screen at the annual Circle Cinema Film Festival July 11-15 at the nonprofit Circle Cinema movie theater . "Meet Me at the Creek" will show at noon July 14 as part of the Native Spotlight short films block.

How does 'Meet Me at the Creek' tell the story of the Tar Creek Superfund Site?

“Meet Me at the Creek" tells a story of interconnectedness and Cherokee values through the lifelong fight of Rebecca Jim, a Cherokee Nation citizen and Waterkeeper Warrior leading the effort to restore Tar Creek in Miami, Oklahoma . U.S. government officials have designated Tar Creek a Superfund Site , deeming the creek “irreversibly damaged" by decades of lead and zinc mining. But Jim refuses to accept that the damage cannot be undone.

During the deadCenter Film Festival, Waters spoke with The Oklahoman about her bond with Jim, her short film's magical realism elements and the cautionary tale of "Meet Me at the Creek," which is even more timely since the Oklahoma Legislature recently passed a controversial bill that blocks people from suing to stop farms from spreading poultry litter onto land as long as farms are following state-approved plans:

Q: What inspired you to make this short film?

'Meet Me at the Creek' is about a Cherokee elder who has a vision for her community, if the water was clean in northeastern Oklahoma. The largest Superfund Site in the country exists there, and she's been working for 40-plus years to clean it up.

So, I was really inspired by Rebecca and her resilience and her determination for this community — and also, the understanding that it's not just northeastern Oklahoma that this is impacting. This is an interconnected issue. The toxins run down into Tulsa; it's in our drinking water. And it's also something that communities all over the place deal with.

So, we just really worked intimately together, spending long nights having conversations about why this is important. We focused on the connection to our homelands as well, and how storytelling is central to who we are.

Q: What do you think about with the government's approach to Tar Creek?

Tar Creek has a really complex history, and the government did buy out Picher, where a lot of people left that town. But there are still people living in the Superfund Site today outside of Picher who are being impacted by the lead and zinc and chat piles.

There is some cleanup happening with the Quapaw Nation that is supported by the EPA . But there is a lot more work to be done in order for that community to continue to move in a positive direction.

Q: What would Rebecca Jim like to see for Tar Creek?

Being a Cherokee Nation citizen living there since the '80s, she remembers the day that the creek turned orange. So, it's been a long journey for her, but she would really like to see parks and spaces where the community members can practice their culture safely. So, she's been working with the EPA and National Parks Service to plan what that will look like, working with designers and people from all different backgrounds to help bring that to life.

I think the ultimate goal is just for a clean Tar Creek so that she can say, 'meet me at the creek.' ... The film has a flipped narrative, where we are seeing those things happen. It's like a magical realism element to it, where we're showing what doesn't exist in that place yet, but it can exist there.

Q: Is there a sense from Jim and others like her that if they don't keep working towards this that Tar Creek will never be cleaned up?

Yeah. I think, for Rebecca, what drives her work is just the idea that there is hope for this place, and she needs to keep working towards this — and we need to keep working towards this as a community to have it clean, because otherwise it would just be left. ...

Whenever people ask, 'What's the answer? What can we do?,' it's not just one quick fix. I think where it starts is the education in 'How can we practice our culture safely? What does this look like within the next 10 years?' And then also the conversation of 'How do we get this whole place clean?,' which is gonna take possibly decades if we continue at this pace.

So, I think that there's a lot of complexities with what has happened in the past, but also what the future looks like. But I think that there just needs to be a lot of different plans in action, and a lot of people coming to work together to make it happen.

Q: Do you feel like there's something of a cautionary tale that Oklahomans should take from Tar Creek?

This film, while it doesn't focus so much on the negatives — it focuses on the positives of what this place could look like — it still serves as a warning sign for communities. ... We don't want this to happen anywhere else. It's so much harder to clean up the damage that's been done than to just prevent it altogether.

So, I think that is something that should be taken into consideration when we are voting in new bills about water quality and poultry farms . ... These things need to be considered because that's the water that we drink, and what goes into our bodies is going to affect our health.

TULSA'S CIRCLE CINEMA FILM FESTIVAL

• When : July 11-15.
• Where : Circle Cinema, 10 S Lewis Ave., Tulsa.
• Information : https://www.circlecinema.org .

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Cherokee filmmaker dives into Oklahoma Superfund Site in short film 'Meet Me at the Creek'