2015 Los Angeles Film Festival Review: Mekko

Almost every African-American person you meet will claim to have some “indian” in their ancestral blood line.  My situation is no different and my actual bloodline includes Cherokee (Oklahoma and North Carolina) on my mother’s side and Black Foot on my Dad’s side of the family.

It’s a part of our history that we proudly acknowledge and protect for the generation before and after.

In a year that speaks so much about diversity on film and television, we rarely see images of Indians depicted in the media from a positive and realistic point of view.  We almost never see these images told and directed by Indians.

MEKKO is a dramatic feature showcased at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival that boasts an Indian Director and cast.  We are taken on the journey of MEKKO, who after being released from prison in Tulsa, Oklahoma finds he is own his  own and homeless and living the consequences of his actions.

As he wanders like a living ghost throughout the town, he makes friends with others on the street while running into his old buddy Bunnie.  Due to a strange and tragic turn of events, MEKKO believes that if he rids the town of its evil “witch” spirits that are co-existing among the living…somehow things will go back to the way they were before his arrest.

 

MEKKO has the feel of being a documentary style feature, while simultaneously educating its audience on the western Indian culture and beliefs.  It brought back many memories for me growing up in St. Louis with my strict Indian grandparents and recalling their tales of spirits and the backlash of pissing those spirits off.

If you missed the first showing of MEKKO this past weekend, an encore screening is happening today, Weds. June 17th.  For more info and screening times, log onto http://www.lafilmfest.com.