The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian hosted a special celebration of The Killers of the Flower Moon this weekend, with a costume exhibit and a screening of the film, which has earned 10 Academy Award nominations. Director Martin Scorsese and actress Lily Gladstone—the first Native American actress nominated for an Oscar—along with Osage Nation’s Chief Standing Bear, took part in a discussion moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“It’s important for us to know who we are as a nation, who we are as a people and as a culture, the good and the bad,” Scorsese said, according to Yahoo News. “I always feel that to wave the bad away and pretend it never happened, it is going to come out against us later on, if not our generation, the next generation.”
Other attendees included Museum of the American Indian Director Dr. Cynthia Chavez Lamar, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, and Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch III.
“We learn that [with] films like Killers of the Flowers Moon, you cannot escape history, but you can be made better by embracing the past, by understanding the past, by using that past to inspire, to challenge, to pry, to make sure we live up to the ideals of this nation,” Bunch said.
