MANKILLER
Dir. Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, USA, 2017
74 min, Digital Projection

Presented in partnership with the Feminist Institute, MANKILLER tells the story of American legend Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Ranking among revolutionary leaders like Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt, Mankiller was an activist and a champion of a nation, despite having been omitted from most history books.

MANKILLER is a documentary celebrating a leader who defied all odds to make a difference for her people. During a time when American Indians found themselves disenfranchised and undervalued by the United States at large, Wilma Mankiller emerged as a champion of the Cherokee Nation and became its first female Principal Chief in 1985.

Following the screening, join us for a short conversation between MANKILLER’s executive producer, Gale Anne Hurd, and the film’s director and producer, Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, moderated by Dr. Amanda Foreman, Chairman of the Board for the Feminist Institute.

About the Filmmakers
Gale Anne Hurd launched her career in film as cowriter and producer of The Terminator. Her additional credits include the Academy Award–winning films The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Ghost and the Darkness, as well as the Academy Award–nominated Armageddon, The Incredible Hulk, Tremors, Dante’s Peak, Aeon Flux, The Punisher, Dick, and The Waterdance. She has also produced two other documentaries on Native American subjects, True Whispers: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers and Choctaw Code Talkers. Hurd is currently an executive producer on The Walking Dead, as well as the AMC companion series Fear the Walking Dead. In 2015, she was awarded the prestigious David O. Selznick Achievement Award by the Producers Guild of America, and she was inducted into the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame in 2014. Hurd received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.

Valerie Red-Horse Mohl is a filmmaker of Cherokee ancestry, whose body of work spans more than three decades of film and television content creation and production. A graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in Theater/Film, she has produced, directed, and written over a dozen award-winning films and television programs, including Naturally Native, True Whispers: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers, Choctaw Code Talkers, Pop Hunter’s Dew Drop INN, Diversity in the Delta, My Indian Summer, and Beauty. Red-Horse Mohl is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild and was inducted into the National Association of Women Business Owners Hall of Fame in 2008.

About the Feminist Institute

The Feminist Institute at Hunter College is building the world’s most significant repository for the study of feminist documentation. It will be a center for scholarly research, a digital archive, a cultural center, a community resource and a tourist attraction. The institute will document and contextualize the movement of feminism, from the 1960s through today, allowing scholars and guests to understand its representation in politics, literature, arts, advertising, and activism.    

The Feminist Institute will offer unprecedented access to source documents, historic materials, and exhibitions to the public, and particularly to students at Hunter College, the Hunter College Campus Schools and the entire CUNY community. This project will enrich the educational experience of students by providing access to and interpretation of primary materials, thus enabling active and engaged participation in feminist dialogue.