The film, which tells the story of the Homestead Act, was made as an educational tool for Homestead National Monument of America, replacing a film that has played at the monument for about 20 years.
CARA PESEK / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Sunday, March 30, 2008 7:00 pm
BEATRICE — After the documentary “Land of Dreams” premieres Saturday night, it will play on a nearly continuous loop for probably more than a decade.
The film, which tells the story of the Homestead Act, was made as an educational tool for Homestead National Monument of America, replacing a film that has played at the monument for about 20 years.
The new documentary tells the homesteading story through interviews with homesteaders and descendants of homesteaders and members of Native tribes that were driven from the land as it was being settled.
It was a big chunk of history to try to contain in one documentary, said producer/director Chuck Dunkerly.
Adding to the challenge: the film had to be short — the intention, after all, is to serve as a brief overview of the Homestead Act for visitors to Homestead National Monument’s Heritage Center.
As Dunkerly put it: “130 years of history and settlement of the American West in 22 minutes.”
Still, Dunkerly and the Homestead National Monument staff wanted it to be thorough.
So production crews interviewed 40 people from across the United States who were affected by the Homestead Act in some way. They filmed interviews in Nebraska, South Dakota, Alaska and Montana, Dunkerly said.
In Nebraska, they filmed in Gage, Lancaster, Custer and Brown counties.
They spent three days in Alaska with Kenneth Deardorff, the last man to file a homestead claim.
“It was just a very amazing experience to be on the very last homestead with the very last homesteader,” Dunkerly said.
In all, Dunkerly said, the project took three years to complete.
Susan Cook, a park ranger at Homestead National Monument, said the film originally had been scheduled for completion in time for the grand opening of the new Heritage Center last year.
But in the rush to get everything done in time (Dunkerly also put together several short films for the building’s multi-media exhibits), the documentary wasn’t ready for the May 2007 dedication ceremony.
So Cook and other Homestead National Monument staff decided to organize another event, one with music and presentations by historians and, of course, the film’s premiere — with a red carpet walk beforehand.
“This is kind of the culmination of the opening of this building,” Cook said.
The film, like the Heritage Center, presents a broad view of the Homestead Act, said park Superintendent Mark Engler.
“I think there’s a perception that homesteading was maybe about the Great Plains,” he said.
In fact, homesteaders filed claims in Florida, California, Arkansas, Montana, Colorado and most other states. Many World War II veterans filed Homestead claims in Alaska. And it wasn’t until the 1980s that Alaska was closed to homesteading.
Today, about 93 million Americans are descended from homesteaders, Dunkerly said. Some of them have amassed thousands of acres around their ancestors’ original claims. Some sold the family homesteads years ago. And many, many homesteaders never completed the improvements to the land mandated by the government in order to officially own the land.
On Saturday, Dunkerly will visit Beatrice to walk the red carpet and watch the premiere of his film that tries to tell all of those stories, and more.
It’s not a feature film, not even a full-length documentary. But with Homestead National Monument staff expecting record crowds this year, it’s a film that thousands of visitors from across the United States — and the rest of the world — will see in coming years.
It’s tricky, Dunkerly said, to cram more than a century of history into a 22-minute movie that needs to endure for a decade.
“But if you tell your story well,” he said, “I think those things resonate for a while.”
Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@journalstar.com.