Indigenous People’s Day spotlights Lakeland grad’s documentary
An award-winning documentary directed and produced by a Lakeland graduate will be the centerpiece of Lakeland’s annual Indigenous People’s Day.
Lakeland will screen 1996 graduate Shannon Kring’s film “End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock” on Monday, October 9, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in the Campus Center Event Space. Kring and one of the film’s stars will join the audience virtually after the film to talk and answer questions. Click here to sign-up for the screening and discussion.
“End of the Line” tells the story of the indigenous women who established a peaceful camp in protest of the multi-billion Dakota Access oil pipeline construction that desecrated ancient burial and prayer sites and threatened their land, water and very existence.
The documentary was a 2022 Emmy Award Nominee for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary, the industry’s highest honor for national documentary programming. It won a 2022 Hollywood Critics Association Television Award for Best Broadcast Network or Cable Documentary. Click here to watch Kring’s award acceptance speech.
Other awards and honors include a 2022 Humanitas Prize Nominee and Special Mention, 2022 Sandford St Martin Award Runner-Up (the UK’s most prestigious broadcast awards for radio, TV and online programs), 2021 Clio Visualizing History Prize for the Advancement of Women in Film, 2019 Stella Artois-Women in Film Finishing Fund Award Winner and 2018 Finnish Film Foundation Award Winner as Kring became the first American and only third female director to receive this honor in the Finnish Film Foundations’s 69-year history.
Kring is an Emmy-winning producer/director/writer and humanitarian who amplifies the experiences of those left vulnerable and voiceless through years of systematic oppression. After living in places as diverse as Helsinki and San Pedro Sula, Honduras (then the Murder Capital of the World), she returned to the U.S. in 2016 to begin production on “End of the Line.”
Wielding the transformative power of storytelling, she amplifies the experiences of those left vulnerable and voiceless through years of systematic racial, economic, gender, geographic and religious oppression. Her work changes minds, opens hearts and inspires social and policy change.
Kring’s documentaries have been presented by dozens of governments, top international broadcasters and institutions including the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the Smithsonian Institution Museum of the American Indian, NASA, MIT and the British Museum.
She works with the UN, U.S. Department of State, USAID, UNEP and other global bodies concerning the indigenous and other marginalized members of society, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, human rights and cultural preservation. She is a UNWTO Liaison and serves as Honduras’ Official Goodwill Ambassador.
While in her 20s and on a $300 line of credit, Kring created a culinary empire including a national, Emmy-winning PBS food documentary series, award-winning and bestselling cookbooks and memoirs and acclaimed restaurants and culinary schools for home and professional chefs.
After a decade in the public eye, she left it all behind to document indigenous elders, world leaders and global change makers in 70+ countries. Her unprecedented access into typically fiercely guarded groups and information enables her to lift the veil on never-before-seen cultural, spiritual and culinary practices long shrouded in mystery and intrigue. She has conducted more than 3,000 interviews to date.
Kring’s first feature documentary, “2012: THE BEGINNING,” was the most-watched of 1,600+ programs at MIPDoc, aired on 20+ TV networks worldwide, and was an official selection at nearly 100 film festivals.
