Willi White
OGLALA LAKOTA
HE/HIM/HIS
Hi, I’m Willi. I’m a film and video producer, director, editor, DP, photographer, and community organizer. Simply, I am an artist and a storyteller.
I’m an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, based on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Over the years, I’ve worked extensively as a filmmaker, photographer, multimedia creative, and communications professional, spending seven years in non-profit communications.
Prior to producing my first feature film WAR PONY (2022), which premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard competition and won Camera d’Or (Golden Camera for Best First Feature Film), I started out producing and directing music videos for local Indigenous artists and short films for fun, worked with companies like VOX Media and VICE, before working crew on titles as WINTER IN THE BLOOD (2013), directed by Alex & Andrew Smith, starring Chaske Spencer and David Morse; AMERICAN HONEY (2016), directed by Andrea Arnold; and WOMAN WALKS AHEAD (2017), released by A24, directed by Susanna White, starring Jessica Chastain and Michael Greyeyes.
I also served as Associate Producer on the feature documentary film LAKOTA NATION vs. THE UNITED STATES (2022), co-directed by Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli, executive produced by Mark Ruffalo and Sara Eagle Heart, which premieres at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.
In 2016, I was awarded a fellowship with the Sundance Institute’s Native and Indigenous program, then in 2019 was awarded the inaugural Ascend Summit Grant with ARRAY Alliance, founded by Ava DuVernay.
Growing up on the rez isn’t easy. It’s hard, complicated, and nuanced. The history is deep, the stories even deeper. As we bring our seats to the table of entertainment and Hollywood, we are simultaneously building our own table and our own seats, creating space and infusing pop culture and mainstream storytelling with our own narratives and our own people. I believe that by having our stories in pop culture today, we are creating cultural and narrative change that impacts our future generations. This is the heart work that pushes me forward every day. Deconstructing what is and rebuilding it through the Indigenous lens. From the way we tell stories, to how we produce them.
I currently work as Executive Producer and Head of Content & Production with a group of dope Natives at NDN COLLECTIVE, where I get to create powerful storytelling with a team of some of the best Indigenous people on Turtle Island.
In conjunction with my day job, I continue to shoot content, build systems, and work with beautiful people in entertainment and media spaces.