Leya Hale - Showtime

Leya Hale: Her star is rising.

Hailing from sunny southern California, Leya grew up in the heart of the American television and movie making industry. With an aspiring-actress mother, and a family with a strong cultural identity (Dine, Dakota), Leya was drawn to visual storytelling at an early age. The more this St. Paul documentarian practices her craft and Indigenous heritage, the more she illuminates the “deep pockets of strength” of her people.

Like many Americans, Leya had a childhood populated with big screen Disney films like Cinderella that she and her siblings would re-create with flair: “We knew all the lines by heart, and we would record it at home, creating our own scenes,” she says. “Our house was the castle, and instead of the fairy dresses, we wore traditional regalia.” She had a video camera but no editing equipment. “I learned editing by accident,” she recalls, “rewinding the VHS tape. Once I discovered that – it was so cool! - I worked on it constantly.”

Her mom wanted her daughter to join her on auditions, but Leya says she found being in front of the camera “nerve racking.” Something else unnerved her: Her mom, a Native woman, was always cast as a background character. Leya remembers, “She never got a leading role.” Other actors didn’t look like them, either, and Leya saw it again and again: “The Native character was in make-up, she wasn’t even Native!” Leya did capitalize on her Native looks when cast in an M&M’s commercial. In the scene, Leya describes children sitting around an elder, dressed in regalia. As scripted, the elder “was giving us ‘Wisdom,’ Leya remembers, then the elder hands everyone M&M’s. Considering the conceit, Leya laughs and shakes her head.

In that television debut, the technology of filming captivated young Leya. “There was a track, a dolly around us, and the movement of cameras! It was a big production for this one 30-second scene.” In that moment, she understood that movie magic was not just what resulted on screen, but that control of the narrative, perspective, was prescribed behind the camera. Leya decided filmmaking would be her future. “My dad always told me, ‘Tell the world that is what you are going to be! The more you talk about it, the more you will meet people who want to help you.’” She went on to study film and television at Cal State Fullerton, seeking mentors and experiences to help her hone her craft.

Two things happened at college: Leya discovered documentary; and she learned that, for her, the best training for ideation and production was to produce something, even if it wasn’t a film.

Leya’s revised goal: revitalizing Fullerton’s annual Pow Wow. “I brought back the Pow Wow,” she says proudly. Working with the student association, she led production, bottom to top: “I learned to fundraise. I had to do the technical aspects: keep the sprinklers off during the Pow Wow; figure out who would take the trash after the event; do the first aid.” She didn’t find the school’s course of study as ACTIVE as the Pow Wow production process was. “There was a disconnect,” she says, “between classroom academics and DOING.” In bringing back the pageantry and participation of the Pow Wow, Leya says she learned valuable lessons in sequencing and follow-through: “I had to think about the facets of the event, the Master of Ceremony, the Head Dancers. It is a production. For 5 years I produced the Pow Wow. I almost forgot about filmmaking!”

California State Fullerton Annual Pow Wow. Photo: CSUF

Her college self also delved deeper into her family’s heritage. Growing up with proud Native parents and grandparents, Leya’s fascination with Indigenous studies grew. Despite abundant “universal teachings from my family,” she says she felt significant gaps. “A lot of culture and language was lost because of boarding schools and assimilation.” She recalled the teaching of her father’s people: “Every tribe has their kinship. Navajo/Dine people say, ‘You are born to your mother.’ You are what your mother is!”

Leya followed that direction and headed to the University of South Dakota (USD) for a degree in American Indian Studies. Her mother (Sisseton Wahpeton) had been adopted by a white family that raised her in California. “My mom was missing her knowledge,” Leya offers. “I was hyper-focused on South Dakota because my tribe is at Lake Traverse.” At USD, Leya learned what she had NOT been taught in high school: details of the 1862 Dakota War; post-war bounties placed on Native people; US government policies expelling Dakota people from Mni Sota and forcing her relatives onto Reservations in South Dakota and elsewhere. “It was new and eye-opening to me,” she says. “I was so angry. How could this not be known?”

She wanted to tell stories of historic displacement and discrimination using modern media. Leveraging her nascent film making skills, she produced several documentaries at USD, including “Everybody Belongs… Out of the Basement,” a 24-minute, student-driven work examining USD’s placement of the American Indian Studies Program and Oral History Archive in a run-down, cramped, mold-infested basement on campus. The students and faculty profiled in the piece denounced the “environmental inequity” of keeping Indigenous stories and Indigenous intellectualism in the basement. As technically unpolished as it was, Leya remembers thinking that her first real film production “was watchable!” She challenged her young self, too, probing, “Think what I could do if I had resources and support. Imagine what stories I could tell!”

Polish and a support followed after Leya landed in St. Paul in 2010. She applied for a position at Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) to work on a documentary on the Dakota War, but missed the application deadline. Disqualified for the unfortunate timing, Leya emailed TPT again: “I just want you to know I’m here. I have knowledge about the Dakota people. Keep me in mind.”

And like movie magic, TPT called a day later and offered her a production assistant position. Her parents had hoped her film career would bring her back to Los Angeles, but Leya says she’s delighted to be doing good work in St. Paul. She feels a kinship here and she is raising her family here. “In California, Indigenous people are dispersed, needles in the haystack. The Twin Cities is a place of central importance and density.”

For 10 years now, Leya has been a Producer for TPT and busy pursuing her own projects. She has earned four Upper Midwest Emmys and recently earned a prestigious Merata Mita Fellowship at the Sundance Institute. She documents primarily Indigenous history and culture. Her first solo TPT Emmy award-winning production was “Reclaiming Sacred Tobacco” in 2016. As an authentic and empathetic storyteller, she is mindful of shining a bright light on subjects never before in the mainstream: “I didn’t want to shame anyone,” she said when the film came out, “I want people to understand that traditional tobacco [the inner bark of the red willow] has always been used in Indigenous prayer traditions, traditions that were forbidden [by the US government]. Using commercial tobacco was the only way we could keep our traditions.” The film highlights Native values and educates community on the high costs of commercial tobacco use among her people. “We had elders from the community that worked with as cultural advisors,” she says. “They saw rough cuts along the way and gave us encouragement that we were on the right track.”

In 2019, Leya received another Emmy (Best Cultural Documentary) for “The People’s Protectors,” a film about four Native Vietnam War veterans (Dakota, Lakota, Ojibwe) and their involvement in the controversial war. It explores how these men struggled fighting for a country that did not fight for them; it showcases individual and collective reliance on community and tradition to shape a warrior’s legacy in battle, and after.

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Currently, Leya is working on “Bring Her Home,” a documentary on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). She says this piece is deeply personal and takes the perspective of Native women who have experienced loss and trauma in their lives, including Mysti Babineau (Red Lake Ojibwe) and Angela Two Stars (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate). It is not, however, a verité on victimhood. “This is a story of overcoming the trauma,” Leya says:

“I want to show how we [Native women] uplift community, make art, or go straight-up activist; how women use voice and body to make change. We show resilience in women and pride in culture. This is about reconnecting with and reclaiming matriarchal society. Women were and are sacred beings. We have special pockets of strength and courage. I am done with women as victims in film.”

As an Indigenous woman, Leya acknowledges she is making this film to empower other Indigenous women. “Bring Her Home” explores individuals taking action and aligns with the broader shift toward racial equity and power here, in her adopted home town. “We are in the aftermath of George Floyd,” Leya says, “George Floyd happened in our own backyard.” If she feels self-conscious leading, she leans on her relatives’ words and is emboldened: “My dad said to me, ‘Be ready when the time comes.’”

At 36, Leya the filmmaker possesses both assertiveness and patience. “I put a lot of thought and prayer into my work,” she says. Bigger audiences mean bigger impact and bigger awards. She continues to refuse the ‘stay in a box’ messages.

Leya shines as she seizes this moment: “I’m bringing stories of individual resilience. There will be no turning off the movie and just walking away.”