<\/p>\n
\u201cDark Winds\u201d star Jessica Matten has joined the cast of historical indie drama \u201cStanding Bear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matten will play Bird Song, the wife of Chief Standing Bear. She joins Chaske Spencer, who leads the project in the title role.<\/p>\n
More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Andrew Troy, who is part Chiricahua Apache, is set to direct the film along with Jim Sheridan (\u201cMy Left Foot\u201d).<\/p>\n The film tells the story of the Ponca Tribe\u2019s harrowing forced removal on the Trail of Tears and the landmark 1879 trial of Standing Bear v. Crook, which secured recognition of Native Americans as \u201cpersons\u201d under U.S. law \u2014 a precedent-setting civil-rights victory too often absent from American history books.<\/p>\n According to the synopsis, Matten will portray the historically identified Zazette (Susette) Primeau, daughter of Lone Chief\/Antoine Primeau \u2014 wife of Ponca Chief Standing Bear, a central witness to her people\u2019s ordeal during the forced removal of 1877. \u201cA woman of quiet authority, she stood at the seam between homelands and exile, family grief and national awakening, helping carry a private promise into public history,\u201d the synopsis says.<\/p>\n The screenplay written by Troy and Sheridan is based on the best-selling book \u201cI Am a Man\u201d by Joseph Starita.<\/p>\n The production is spearheaded by Troy Entertainment, in association with Sheridan\u2019s Hell\u2019s Kitchen Limited, and longtime Anonymous Content president Paul Green. Rene\u0301 Haynes, whose credits include \u201cKillers of the Flower Moon\u201d and \u201cWind River,\u201d is the film\u2019s casting director.<\/p>\n The film has garnered wide-ranging institutional and bipartisan governmental support, including endorsements from the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, the Tyonek Native Corporation, the Athabascan Tribe, the State of Nebraska, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts, Governor Jim Pillen, and former Nebraska State Senators Burke Harr (Democrat) and Colby Coash (Republican) who have both joined the production as executive producers. Production is scheduled to begin in February.<\/p>\n The Ponca Tribe is developing a Standing Bear Museum and cultural center in Niobrara, at the site of its traditional homelands and the film\u2019s shooting location.<\/p>\n Matten is repped by M88, Spencer by CESD, Troy by The Gersh Agency, and Sheridan is repped by WME.<\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cDark Winds\u201d star Jessica Matten has joined the cast of historical indie drama \u201cStanding Bear.\u201d Matten will play Bird Song, the wife of Chief Standing Bear. She joins Chaske Spencer, who leads the project in the title role. More from Variety Andrew Troy, who is part Chiricahua Apache, is set to direct the film along […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2081781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[391443,391440,391442,387080,391439,391441,391438],"class_list":["post-2081780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-bird-song","tag-chaske-spencer","tag-forced-removal","tag-jessica-matten","tag-jim-sheridan","tag-ponca-tribe","tag-standing-bear"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/\u2018Dark-Winds-Star-Jessica-Matten-Joins-\u2018Standing-Bear-Movie-EXCLUSIVE.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2081780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2081782,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081780\/revisions\/2081782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2081781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2081780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2081780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2081780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}