Museum of the Cherokee People- Unrelenting
Who gets to tell the story?
How do we remember the birth of America?
The story of the American Revolution changes depending on whose voices are included. In partnership with the Museum of the Cherokee People, we created a first-voice educational film centered on Cherokee perspectives, bringing the ideas behind Unrelenting: Cherokee People and the American Revolution beyond the Museum and into classrooms across the country.
Cherokee Voices
How do we remember the birth of America? For most classrooms, the story begins with tea, taxes, and the Founding Fathers. For Cherokee people, the story is much older.
As the country approached the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, the Museum of the Cherokee People created ᏧᏂᏲᏍᎩ ᏂᎨᏒᎾ: ᏣᎳᎩ ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎯ ᏃᎴ ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏁᎦ ᏓᏂᎦᏘᎴᎬ ᎠᏰᎵ ᎤᏙᏒᎲᎢ Unrelenting: Cherokee People and the American Revolution. The exhibition holds its own space alongside America250, centering Cherokee voices, scholarship, and creativity in a chapter of history where they are usually left out.
The Museum wanted a film to carry that perspective beyond the gallery walls. Something that could work as a classroom resource for 5th grade students and their teachers, and also meet the everyday museum visitor arriving with the version of the Revolution they learned in school.
Partnership from the First Call
This was never a vendor engagement. It was built as a partnership from the first call.
The Museum led scripting, research, and the cultural accuracy of every frame. Two Dots shaped how that work translated into film. We co-invested in the production, sponsoring roughly half of the total cost, because we believe stories like this one need to exist and because partnership means sharing the weight.
The structure was simple. One production day. One main film. Cherokee voice at the centre of every decision.
First-Voice perspective
Rather than a word-for-word script, the Museum built a topic outline. Prompts, not lines. This let each speaker bring their own perspective in their own words, which is exactly what a first-voice institution should sound like.
MotCP Executive Director Shana Bushyhead Condill (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians) and Registrar Lilyan Huskey (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians) carried the story on camera. Behind it sat the Museum’s own methodology: 18th century documents translated through the Cherokee Speakers Council to recover what the Cherokee actually said, not what colonial translators wrote down.
We filmed everything in a single 8-hour day at the Museum in Cherokee, weaving interviews together with exhibition artworks, archival materials, and the landscapes of the Cherokee homelands.
Making an impact.
The film premiered at the Museum’s film festival, The Way We See the World, to a standing room only crowd. More than 700 tickets were reserved and roughly 400 people filled the room. Shana introduced the film to the community as a collaboration, before its online release as a free educational resource timed to the school calendar.
“Thank you so much for everything! Your generosity is so very appreciated, and your genuine and authentic way you tell stories absolutely shows through. We got so many compliments on the film!! It is next level for us, and of course, inspiring all kinds of ideas for the future.”
The film now lives alongside the Unrelenting exhibition, which runs through December 2026, and extends its reach into classrooms across the country through MotCP’s free educational resources.