Winter in the Blood

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Alex and Andrew Smith, writers/directors of the award-winning independent feature film, The Slaughter Rule, have created a signature film adaptation of James Welch's classic novel Winter in the Blood, associate produced by Kitefliers Studios founders Neil Gobioff and Shawn Paonessa.

The Brothers Smith believe this contemporary visionquest can present Welch's darkly humorous voice to a mass audience while maintaining integrity, and creating an intimate awareness of the pervasive, deep-seeded social issues still present in contemporary Reservation life.

Winter in the Blood had its World Premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

The Journey

Virgil First Raise wakes with a shiner and a hangover in a roadside ditch on the stark but beautiful plains of Montana. As he rises to face the day he sees a vision of his father lying dead at his feet. Impossible – his father froze to death in a snowdrift years earlier. Virgil returns home to find that his wife, Agnes, has left him. Worse, she's taken his electric razor and his beloved rifle.

Virgil sets out to find her – beginning a hi-line odyssey of inebriated encounters, sexual skirmishes, and improbable cloak-and-dagger intrigues with the mysterious “Airplane Man”. Virgil's quest also brings him face-to-face with childhood memories and visions of his beloved, lost brother Mose – some glorious, some tragic. Only when Virgil seeks the counsel of an old, blind man named Yellow Calf, does he grasp the truth of his origins and begin to thaw the ice in his veins.

Also See

The Quest

Winter in the Blood was shot in northern Montana on and around the Fort Belknap Reservation, and features an 80% Native American cast. Just as the novel was a vanguard for the Native American Literary renaissance thirty-five years ago, the Winter in the Blood film project is uniquely positioned at the forefront of a contemporary renaissance in Indigenous film.

This project, executed properly at this cultural moment, will be of undeniable interest to the over 5,500,000 Americans who identify as "First Nations". Further, there is a proven international audience for Western/Indigenous stories – particularly in Canada, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia. It will also appeal to fans of the Welch, the Smith Brothers and, because of its cast, to fans of The Twilight Saga.

The Novel

Winter in the Blood was the first novel written by James Welch, a Native American poet, author, documentary scriptwriter and historical essayist. Winter in the Blood has long been acknowledged as a primary voice in the Native American Renaissance. It has remained in print for over thirty-five years and is a cornerstone of the Penguin Classics canon.

Welch's total book sales worldwide number over half a million. Equally impressive, Welch's loyal, diverse, and multi-generational fan base has driven his novels to be translated into eight languages and ensured that they remain mainstays in Native American, Indigenous Studies, and Western Literature classes in universities across the United States, Canada and abroad.