KOSU, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship and the Circle Cinema are hosting a screening of Bad Press, a documentary film about the fight for free press in Indian Country.

Bad Press is the story of a fight for transparency in the face of censorship. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Angel Ellis is a reporter for Mvskoke Media in Okmulgee. She wants to give her readers access to all the information relevant to the Muscogee Nation.

But that’s not an easy task, given that Angel and her colleagues believe in truth and transparency and aren't afraid to challenge the integrity of some questionable tribal officials. But, they’re faced with a confusing whirlwind of an emergency session at the National Council, where the 2015 Free Press Act is repealed, and the newspaper is placed under the direction of the Secretary of the Nation and Commerce.

Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler tell a nuanced, empowering tale of Ellis and her modern Native community fighting for transparency and access to information in order to hold their tribal nation’s government accountable.

Variety called Bad Press, “an engrossing documentary on a fight for tribal government transparency” and the Hollywood Reporter said that, “Landsberry-Baker and Peeler’s documentary is thus the perfect illustration of what happens when you dismantle the Fourth and Fifth Estates and wind up putting democracy in peril, and it’s something everyone in America should be worried about right now.”

Bad Press is being shown as part of the Circle Cinema Film Festival. More information about the film can be found on the website.

Event Details

Saturday, July 15
Circle Cinema
10 S. Lewis Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74104

Tickets can be purchased here.

The event begins with a reception at 1 p.m., with food catered by Tricia Fields Alexander, owner of Autumn Star Catering, which serves traditional Native American foods across the country.

The film will begin at 2 p.m., and will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A moderated by KOSU Indigenous Affairs Reporter Allison Herrera.

The panelists will be filmmaker Rebecca Landsberry-Baker, Angel Ellis and Jerrad Moore of Mvskoke Media and Shannon Shaw Duty, editor of Osage News.

The event is part of Circle Cinema's Native Spotlight series, sponsored by the Flint Family Foundation.