After Killers of the Flower Moon, don’t miss this another interesting film about Osage culture!

If you enjoyed Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, which came out on October 18th, then you’ll appreciate the documentary that hit theaters this week: Bridge over the Ocean! Directed by Francis Furku, the film takes us from the Great Osage Plains of Oklahoma to the mountains of Occitania.

We are going to meet two indigenous people talking and responding to each other. Two women tell us about two cultures of endangered languages. Isabelle l’Occitan among the Osages, Chelsea, Osage among the Occitans, a journey through the scenery and history of the American plains and mountains of Occitan.

Osages and Occitans

Francis Furqu was very early aware of this incredible story of friendship between the Osages and Occitans. “This story was awakened by Monique and Jean-Claude Druichet, during the creation of Oklahoma-Occitanie, who wanted to revive this old relationship. I immediately saw a film that would equate these two cultures. In 2002, I So I made my first trip, with the plan of writing a screenplay for the Osage’s trip to France in 1827.The director explains.

“Television turned down the project, but I jumped at the chance to make a short 40-minute film, the heart of which was an interview with two people in the nation: Lucille Robedo, one of the last three Osage speakers to testify about her. Pessimism about the future of the Osage language and Chief Jim Gray, who was elected for 8 years and had a broad vision of Native American history.

Jim Gray saw an opportunity to expand the Osage cultural struggle in his dealings with the Occitans. So he took strong measures for the language. In 2014, during the second trip, Francis Furku saw that the language was finding speakers. According to the filmmaker, Osage scholar Mongrain Lockout and his fellow linguists created the Osage alphabet. A refresher lesson for oral language so far.

“I have this sensitivity to indigenous cultures that really excites the cultural world of America. The pope’s recent visit to Canada to seek forgiveness from Native Americans for crimes committed at Native American boarding schools has yet to reach the United States. It is at the center of Canadian politics today. At the same time, another question, are Occitans indigenous?Francis Furcu asks.

According to him, the question deserves to be asked by correcting the use of the word in French culture, which is derogatory. “It is clear that the issue of language is closely related to it. It is a struggle to awaken this word and treat it with respect. The general did the rest.”

A wonderful meeting

Frances Furku met Chelsea, the young Osage girl featured in the documentary, thanks to Patrick Martin, principal of the Osage School in Pawhuska. She conducts workshops with children in the Native American horse painting tradition. Chelsea wrote her first book of poems and stories partly in the Osage language.

“This is what becomes important: the language wakes up, creates its alphabet, and the writer appears. This is the future in the making. People will conquer their culture with their language, and now writing, memory, new. story. Chelsea’s trip to Occitania, Isabelle’s trip to Oklahoma bring back the usual point of view”Francis Furku points out.

“The Native American on our culture and the Occitan on the Osage culture gives complete equality as the Occitan ‘convivéncia’. I don’t believe the Occitans like the Native Americans, the Corsicans. The Bretons or others are too used to it.”

A Bridge Over the Ocean hits theaters on October 25.