STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

The conversation started last year as a handful of Native Americans discussed what lay ahead in the wake of the protests at Standing Rock.

This year film producer Heather Rae is creating a conversation about the future of the film industry—and other workplaces—in the light of the #MeToo movement.

The Current Conversations discussion is part of the 2018 Sun Valley Film Festival, which kicks off on Wednesday.

The panel discussion will feature Rae; Sarah Sunshine Manning, a Shoshone-Paiute writer and activist who has produced pieces for the Indian Country Media Network; Effie Brown, a filmmaker who has produced such films as “Rocket Science,” “Real Women Have Curves” and “Dear White People,” and Wendy Guerrero, president of the Bentonville Film Festival, a research-based film festival that champions women and diversity in the media.

Their conversation will take place at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 17, at Festival Headquarters in the Warfield Distillery. It is free to the pubic with priority admission for film festival pass-holders.

“The idea is to bring conversations to the valley that make people think and that create new conversations,” said Rae, a founding board member of the Sun Valley Film Festival. “In the last year and a half with the current administration a lot has changed in the country and people are talking about things in a way that they didn’t before. A lot of the work in terms of narrative change and societal change is through storytellers. So I feel strongly that the film festival is a natural space where we can be having these conversations.”

The film industry itself has changed immensely because of all the women who have acknowledged  sexual harassment since seismic claims against Harvey Weinstein rocked Hollywood in September, said Rae.

“And that’s been happening on a number of fronts, including TV networks and agency studios. It’s been an incredible kind of dismantling. If we are dismantling something, what are we putting in its place? What new systems are we creating? How are we creating more integrity or accountability within our working environment? And how are we creating more space for people to be able to tell the truth?” she said.

Rae added that she wants to explore ways in which men and women can create change during the panel discussion.

“I think one way is having more balance in terms of power. We’ve had a system that is pretty heavily gender imbalanced.  And it’s important that there be balance as you need all perspectives. To have one perspective dominating and the other knocking on the door is not in the best interest of a holistic viewpoint,” she said.

Before the Weinstein case broke, anyone reporting inappropriate behavior that caused the victim stress or harm in the workplace was typically ridiculed because the bad behavior was protected, Rae said. That extended beyond the film industry, she added, pointing to gymnasts who were ignored when they complained to the University of Michigan and the U.S. Olympic Association about a doctor who was abusing them.

“I have been really impressed by the courage that it’s taken for women—and men—to come forward and tell their stories at the risk of being ridiculed. That’s been inspiring to me,” said Rae, who was involved in similar conversations at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. “To see things change where someone being treated inappropriately can actually now step forward and address that behavior and to know there’s now an actual framework to deal with it is pretty remarkable.”

Rae said the panel will also discuss the power of storytelling when it comes to a variety of subjects, including race and class.

“Prior to ‘Black Panther,’ there was a perception in the industry that a superhero could not be a person of color if the movie was to be commercially viable. ‘Black Panther’ with its predominantly African-American cast has blown that theory out of the water, as it’s become one of the top grossing films of all time,” she said.

The same thing happened with the 2017 film “Wonder Woman,” about a princess of the Amazons who leaves home to fight alongside men in a war to end all wars, she added.

Prior to that film there had never been a superhero in a big Hollywood movie that had been a woman because the industry moguls didn’t think it was commercially viable.

“And then they made ‘Wonder Woman’ and it changed the culture,” said Rae. “For the first time, there was a story being told that women could have great power. And, suddenly, there were kindergarten girls saying, ‘I can do anything.’

“So, you know, these notions come along and, though they may be dominant, they are not always real. And so we have to change those narratives. One of the most powerful ways of changing those narratives is through story. We must change the story that we’ve been told over and over again.”

WHAT’S HEATHER UP TO?

Heather Rae, who produced the Academy Award-nominated “Frozen River” and “Trudell,” is currently working on a TV series that’s still a private projects. She’s also filming a film on the black rodeo circuit in Texas.

“I grew up in Idaho going to rodeos and I’m a big rodeo fan so I’m very excited about this project,” she said.