Olshefski doc “Without Arrows” to screen in Boyd Recital Hall Thursday

Radio, Television & Film Professor Jonathan Olshefski will host a campus screening of his award-winning film, “Without Arrows,” Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in Boyd Recital Hall.

The film, which premiered Jan. 13 on the PBS program INDEPENDENT LENS, chronicles three generations of a Lakota family living on a Cheyenne River Sioux reservation. The protagonist, Delwin Fiddler Jr., is an acclaimed grass dancer who returns to his ancestral home in South Dakota after 11 years in Philadelphia. Leaving big city life behind, his goal was to reconnect with his mother and father and learn more about their family history.

Olshefski shot the story over 13 years, employing the cinema verité style of filmmaking that he used for 2017’s “QUEST,” his award-winning, debut feature-length film about a North Philadelphia family. The technique enables him to get close to his protagonists to tell a rich, layered story.

The screening in Boyd will be followed by a Q&A with Olshefski and Fiddler.