From Moving Image Archive News:
The Daughter of Dawn, perhaps the only all-Native American cast silent film ever made, has been rediscovered in “shambles” a century after it was made, restored, and now re-presented.
The restoration had its world premiere in June at the deadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City, as Indian Country News reports.
One of the earliest silent movies filmed in Oklahoma, the 80-minute film was filmed near Lawton in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge among the Comanche and Kiowa nations. The Oklahoma Historical Society acquired and restored the film, virtually unseen for decades, with funds from the National Film Preservation Foundation. The Oklahoma Historical Society commissioned a new musical score from Comanche composer David A. Yeagley and recorded by the Oklahoma City University Philharmonic.