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In the otherworldly Badlands of South Dakota, a seemingly ‘bad’ land is revealed to be teeming with life, buried histories, and restorative futures.
Badlands | Documentary Feature
Est 90 mins, currently in production
Set in the dramatic Badlands of western South Dakota—a region sculpted by erosion, militarization, dispossession, and preservation—the film unearths histories that have shaped the North American landscape. Through intimate documentary footage, deeply researched archival material, and speculative virtual worlds, Badlands immerses viewers in the stewardship of contested lands, while imagining restorative futures.
Guided by Lakota ethnobotanist Richard T. Sherman's 'Indigenous Stewardship Model' the film weaves together a multiplicity of perspectives in order to explore how different ways of knowing can work together toward environmental justice. Centering the land, the film visits with a wide array of humans and non-humans including ecologists, tribal members, paleontologists, ranchers, military historians, tourists, foragers, rangers, rocks, flora, and fauna. These intertwine to create a deeply layered portrait of place across vast scales that poetically yet urgently reckons with how to foster interdependent and accountable relationships between inhabitants of all landscapes.
Badlands is part of the multi-format documentary project, Topography. Supported by Sundance Institute, Sandbox Films, Catapult Documentary Film Fund, Headlands Center for the Arts Residency and Project Space, McEvoy Family Award for Film/Video, Ken Corday Grow Grant, Agricultural Experiment Station Research Fellowship, Badlands National Park Arts Residency.
Credits
Hannah Jayanti | director, producer, editor, cinematographer, sound
Alexander Porter | co-director, producer, virtual production director
Keith Wilson | producer
Richard T. Sherman | consulting producer
Delfina Vincenti | associate producer
Juan Pedro Agurcia | associate producer
Michele Graffieti | designer
