Indigenous Film Series: Medicine Ball

Basketball was introduced to Native youth in boarding schools as a tool of assimilation and control. But over the generations it became a symbol of hope and a space of healing, pride and identity. For Native families, the game is more than sport; it is a lifeline, a way to carry forward culture, to build community, and to create joy amidst adversity. 

Medicine Ball

Directed by Leya Hale (Dakota/Diné), this documentary film follows Leroy Fairbanks IV (Leech Lake Ojibwe) and Lexus Redthunder (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota) as they navigate college life at the University of Minnesota Morris, a campus built on the grounds of a former Indian boarding school. Their personal journeys as athletes unfold alongside the layered history of how basketball became interwoven with Native resilience. Guiding their path is Dakota historian Syd Beane, whose own family connection to basketball provides a living bridge between past and present. 

Medicine Ball is not just about basketball. It is about legacy, survival and the ways Native people continue to adapt and thrive. This screening as part of the Indigenous Film Series, offers audiences the chance to acquire not only a deeper understanding of the boarding school era’s enduring impact, but also the hope, ceremony and empowerment embodied in the game of basketball for Native communities today. 

• Free event. No registration required.

Director's Q&A

Don't miss the Director's Q&A with Leya Hale and Syd Beane following the screening. 

• Leya Hale comes from the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Din? Nations. In 2020, Leya was awarded the Sundance Institute Merata Mita Fellowship for Indigenous Artists and attended the 2020 Berlinale European Film Market as a NATIVE Fellow. When not producing feature films, Leya works on a variety of short form content in efforts to create social change within the upper Midwest region.  

• Syd Beane was born and raised on the Flandreau Santee Reservation in South Dakota. His mother, Lillian Eastman Moore (Santee Sioux) and father, Sidney Rouse Beane (Yankton Sioux) met while students at Flandreau Indian School in South Dakota where Sidney served as head basketball and cross/country running coach. Syd received his Associate of Arts Degree from North Dakota State School of Science, BA in history from Yankton College in South Dakota and MSW from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.Syd developed media experience in Phoenix during the 1970’s working with Arizona Hall of Fame Broadcaster Roy Track for 8years as co-host/producer of the weekly 21st CENTURY NATIVE AMERICANS TV talk show. In California, Syd worked with American Indian activist/entertainer Floyd Red Crow Westerman in Los Angeles as President of Floyd’s film company Red Crow Creations. The company produced the documentary films “EXIT:WITHOUT RESERVATION”, and “THE CALIFORNIA STORY”, as well as co-founding INTERTRIBAL ENTERTAINMENT media training program with Southern Californian Indian Centers. This partnership led to relationships with the major studios andnative media Tribes and organizations that formed the NATIVE MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY NETWORK. Syd served as National Coordinator of the Native Media & Technology Network (NMTN) developing media training and business opportunities with major media companies and the AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER FILM INSTITUTE in partnership with FOX ENTERTAINMENT GROUP in Los Angeles. Syd is a former national board member of Vision Maker Media (film production) and Native Public Media (radio production). He is a past board chair of Migizi Communications, a nonprofit in Minneapolis providing film production training to Native youth. Syd has taught media classes at Minneapolis Community College. He continued with documentary filmmaking in Minnesota as producer/writer of a feature length film on the American Indian Civil Rights Movement entitled “NATIVE NATIONS: STANDING TOGETHER FOR CIVIL RIGHTS” which was shown on ABC and NBC and the Hallmark Channel.He produced the documentary “OHIYESA: THE SOUL OF AN INDIAN” for Public Television Distribution. He was a major contributor to the book “NATIVE HOOPS: The Rise of American Indian Basketball 1895 - 1970” by author Wade Davies. Syd is an established history researcher and writer whose most recent book “IN THE BEGINNING, THE SUN: THE DAKOTA LEGEND OF CREATION” was released in April 2023 by Minnesota Historical Society Press. He has received the Frank Blythe Award for Media Excellence from Vision Maker Media. Syd is Executive Producer and featured basketball and boarding school historian in the Medicine Ball documentary film.

This FREE screening is part of the 2026 Indigenous Film Series presented by the City of Bloomington's Human Rights Commission and Parks and Recreation Department in partnership with Bloomington Public Schools' American Indian Education Program. 

Questions? Email Amanda Crombie, Equity and Inclusion Program Manager, at acrombie@bloomingtonmn.gov.