Growing up in Tulsa, Colleen Thurston never imagined filmmaking could be part of her future—at least not in Oklahoma. To her, filmmaking was only possible for people living in faraway coastal cities, places like California or New York. Fast forward to now, Thruston is rewriting that narrative for herself, showcasing her first feature-length documentary, ‘Drowned Land’ at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival.
A self-proclaimed “recovering” professor at 40, with ‘Drowned Land’ Thruston has woven together a story of Choctaw history across time, incorporating the voices of a group of water protectors as they fight to end a cycle of environmental exploitation and to preserve the Kiamichi River– the lifeline of their community.
“Water is life, but free-flowing water is not guaranteed,” Thurston narrates in the film. “When the Choctaw were forced to what is now Oklahoma and what was then the Caddo Nation, U.S. President Andrew Jackson guaranteed that we would not be moved again. That this land would be ours as long as the grass grows and the water runs. But what if they stop the water from running?”
One of Oklahoma’s most biodiverse waterways, the Kiamichi River, is in the crosshairs of the state’s plans to divert 85% of its remaining flow—alarming locals and environmentalists alike.
This isn’t new to the Kiamichi River. The river has already been dammed twice to create flood-control reservoirs: Hugo Lake, completed in 1974, and Sardis Lake, completed in 1980. The creation of Sardis Lake submerged and swallowed up the town of Sardis. Today, a small island of graves in the middle of the reservoir is all that remains.
In ‘Drowned Land,’ Thurston asks, “Who was here? Whose land is this? Who had to move?”
Oklahoma has more man-made lakes than any other state in the country. Creating these lakes came at the ultimate price— the forced displacement of Oklahomans, many of them Native, who lost their homes and lands as the water rose.
Thruston carries a personal connection to the history she explores in the film. Her Choctaw ancestors were forced from their southeastern homelands by the U.S. government in the 1800s in a brutal act of dispossession— the Trail of Tears.
A hundred years later, her grandfather, John E. Turnbull, a Choctaw civil engineer, helped construct dams in Oklahoma for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that displaced Native communities all over again, according to Thurston, forever changing the face of Oklahoma.
“I never correlated when I was a kid going to the lake was my grandfather’s work,” Thurston said. “Now that’s all I think about.”
Thruston dedicated the past seven years of her life to helping share this story with the world. She says her ancestors have been preparing her for this moment all her life.
“I honestly feel like [my grandfather] poked and prodded me along to examine and to give voice to his work, and I think I can relate to that,” Thurston said. “I think that if my ‘Legacy’ of my career was perceived in some circles as just being detrimental, I think that I would want somebody to examine that.”
Initially, Thruston said she was drawn to the story of Sardis Lake because of her tribe’s long-standing legal battle over water rights.
“I thought I was going to tell the story of the lake,” Thruston said. But as she spoke with more community members in the area, she said the focus began to shift, and rightfully so.
“They told me, ‘You need to tell the story of the river. That’s what’s happening now,’” she said.
She embraced the community’s direction and allowed the community to drive the story, because that’s what made sense.
“My dad would take us camping as kids, and we would swim in the lakes. And so I definitely feel connected to the water in eastern Oklahoma. I actually just got the privilege of meeting the Kiamichi River maybe within the last 10 years or so.”
Still, growing up multiple hours away from this community, Thurston struggled with her place in the story.
“It’s my tribe, but I’m not from that region. I felt like an outsider,” she said.
Thurston took time to reflect on why she was the one telling this story. That uncertainty gave way to clarity as the project unfolded. While in college, she received unexpected gifts—old films from her late grandfather. Completely unaware he always had a camera in hand documenting their family, Thurston says it feels really special to be walking in his footsteps.
She got the films digitized when she began working on the documentary.
They revealed a previously unknown family bond to the Kiamichi River.
“I have a deep connection that my body remembers that I didn’t even necessarily know about, and I’ve reconnected that knowledge and reconnected the relationship with the land,” Thurston said. “I do feel like [my grandfather’s] story is really intertwined with mine in that way, and the story of the river.”
The film has since become a space where Thruston, her grandfather, and the river come together—bound not only by memory and heritage but also by the act of storytelling.
“It’s interesting to think that all three of us, myself, my grandfather and the river had never been together in a lifetime as physical beings, but now we are in this film,” Thurston told Noeledrich.“I was definitely called to tell this story. I always make jokes that my ancestors are loud and bossy. They’re like, ‘You are doing this.’”
The film is headed back to Oklahoma for the deadCenter Film Festival June 14-15.
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