I had the fortune of meeting Pierre Barrera at ImagineNATIVE 2007 through our mutual friend, Sterlin Harjo. It seems Pierre has been flying low under the radar since his 2004 participation at the Institute of American Indian Arts Summer Film and Television Workshop for which the film His Light (written by Migzi Pensoneau) he directed garnered him an ABC Talent Development Scholarship/ Leadership Award.

Now, Pierre has been busy working as a set dresser on Frank Miller’s latest adaptation of Will Eisner’s comic book series, The Spirit, shot in Santa Fe, NM where Pierre makes his home. Pierre has also created his own production company, Wumbic Productions where he works to put together EPKs (electronic press kits, those behind the scenes interviews, et cetera) and videography. Recently I had the privilege of talking with him at length, grilling him on a litany of questions. As my misfortune would have it, my computer crashed, seized up, did what an obsolete three year old Mac PowerBook G4 is supposed to do. I was able to salvage a portion of the interview and as misfortunes have a way of turning back into fortunes, Pierre graced me with another phone interview and gracious he was.

Torry Mendoza (TM): I did a little research on you. I had to google you, that sounds dirty, but I had to google you.

Pierre Barrera (PB): I feel so violated.

(TM): As you should. Have you checked out NAICA online yet, our website?

(PB): Yes I have. I’ve been around through there a couple of times.

(TM): What do you think of it? What are your first impressions?

(PB): My first impressions, I think it’s really cool because you guys are going places and seeing all the media that Native people are involved with.

(TM): After violating you via google, as a 2004 participant of the Insitute of American Indian Arts Summer Film and Television Workshop and a recipient of the 2004 ABC Talent Development Scholarship/Grant Leadership Award, How important is it for media institutions in mainstream America to become involved with Indigenous People?

(PB): I think it’s very important just because the stories that we have are not similar to the what’s out there in the media now. So, it’s good to have those stories show up and be there just for history’s sake. We have different things to say even on the same matters we have different things to say. I think it’s very important for us to tell our stories.

(TM): Last week on Kid Nation, the show represented a few Laguna Pueblo people as inhabiting teepees. The dissemination of portrayals like that on network television, specifically in this case is aimed at kids, seem to perpetuate an intentional misunderstanding, how would you address that?

(PB): I think that’s another reason that the scholarship grant from ABC and programs like that where people are trying to develop not only the talents of writers and directors, but just getting our voices in there so that the stereotypes that do exist currently in Hollywood are stopped. We can just stop having to deal with the inadequacies that people have about our people, that non-Native people have about all Native people. So that they know Pueblo people don’t live in teepees and stuff like that.

(TM): Are you concerned at all with issues of Indigenous representation in the media?

(PB): Yes I am, basically because we haven’t been able to tell our stories our way as of yet in a true manner without any outside influence. Independent films now have been touching the surface of that, but I think that until Hollywood decides that they’re willing to give us the money to tell our own stories our way we truly won’t be able to get things the way we want them. Get our stories out and move through everything.

(TM): Do you think that’s because of control issues in Hollywood . . . I know they probably not intentionally trying to perpetuate stereotypes, but they seem to be doing that?

(PB): Hollywood doesn’t know any better, just to put it plainly and simply. They’ve always gone on stereotypes from what was observed in the past and they think that’s how everything is. There’s nothing wrong with that because they are storytellers and they have to appeal to a general audience. It’s just that when you try to give specifics of some things, telling stories of all peoples, Asians, Blacks, all types of peoples then it gets into different categories. Now because they have to appeal to the wide audience they have to generalize everything and that’s where the problem happens. When they generalize, they tend to veer towards the stereotypes because it’s easier.

(TM): A lot of the news that I watch, I don’t know how much news you watch, but I always see anchor people or personalities having to kind of filter what has just been said and make it more palatable to the general audience, kind of dumbing it down. Is that how you see it?

(PB): Yes, definitely. Studies have come saying that Americans literally are at about an eighth grade or ninth grade level in intelligence in the general population. That’s not to say we’re stupid or anything, it’s just that’s on average through the whole population of the United States that’s where we are. That includes adults, children and all that other stuff. People tend to dumb everything down for the eighth grade level instead of making everything, maybe if we do it a little higher maybe at a tenth grade maybe somebody would learn something, and that’s were the problems happen.

(TM): Here’s the last question. I told you this would be painless. As you may know, NAICA examines and explores issues of indigenity pertaining to cinema and the arts specifically in an academic fashion, with that said how would you or do you define or identify yourself as an Indigenous person working in the medium of film?

(PM): First of all, I’m Lakota and Klamath. I was born and raised on the Rosebud Indian Reservation and I see myself as a Native man, Indigenous, I do practice, I sweat once in a while, I do practice as many of my Native traditions as I can. On the other hand, I’m also a filmmaker and I tell stories. I don’t want to be categorized as a Native American filmmaker. I’d rather be just seen as a filmmaker who happens to be Native American.

(TM): As far as it comes to filmmaking, filmmaking comes first or the artistry of filmmaking and then Indigenous comes second.

(PB): Yes, if I can tell an Indigenous story through the way I make film then that would be my ultimate goal. But right now I have to establish myself as a filmmaker first and then everyone will see this guy’s a Native guy. Following in the foot steps of somebody like Ang Lee who has done almost all of the genres of film and you don’t see him as Asian filmmaker Ang Lee, you see him as director Ang Lee, who happens to be Asian.

(TM): So that’s not to pigeonhole your self.

(PB): Yes, I don’t want to pigeonhole myself as a Native American filmmaker. I want to pigeonhole myself as a director, as Pierre Barrera the director. You give him a story, he can tell it for you.

(TM): I look at that as a guerilla way of getting into Hollywood to infiltrate, you come in with the credentials but then you can go out and tell the stories that haven’t been told, or have been told inaccurately.

(PB): Exactly. And that’s exactly what I want to do. I need to get the credentials in and get to a point where people will be willing to hand me a story then I can tell my own. Because that’s how most Hollywood big directors do it, except for Spielberg who just told his own stories from the beginning.