Transcript
Julie Kiefer: The Sundance Film Festival is underway in Park City showcasing some of the year's best independent films. One of them is “Winding Path,” a short documentary featuring an MD-PhD student here at the University of Utah and her name is Jenna Murray.
The story follows her journey toward becoming a healer and how that path has been shaped by her Eastern Shoshone upbringing and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
I'm Julie Kiefer, associate director of science communications at University of Utah Health, and my guests today are the film’s star Jenna Murray, Oscar Award-winning filmmaker Ross Kauffman, who co-directed “Winding Path,” and Joe Borgenicht, interim co-chief marketing and communications officer at University of Utah Health and the film's executive producer.
Congratulations on the film and welcome to U Rising!
Jenna Murray: Thank you.
Joe Borgenicht: Thanks, Julie. Thanks for having us.
Ross Kauffman: It is great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Julie Kiefer: Jenna, you're an MD-PhD student here at the U in your second year. What do you eventually hope to do with your degree?
Jenna Murray: That's a good question. I would love to have pretty equal clinic and research time, so clinically I'm pretty interested in OBGYN or some form of primary care. I would love to work with tribal populations, whether that's in Wyoming or Utah. And on the research side, I love community-based research in Native communities, so I hope to continue doing that hopefully on my reservation. That's kind of like my ideal setup and dream job.
Julie Kiefer: That's great. And it sounds like, according to the film, your grandfather had a big influence on this career path. Tell us about that.
Jenna Murray: Yeah, so I lost my grandfather when I was 16 to a heart attack. It happened at his home on the Wind River Reservation, which is actually where we filmed a lot of the film that's showing at Sundance, and I think that's just one of many stories that Native people have of relatives not getting care or passing away from what could be a preventable death, and that just really struck me at a young age. If he lived in a city or just had better access to care, if he could get transported to a hospital quickly, he would probably still be alive today. People have heart attacks all the time in Salt Lake and they live, and by the time he even got EMS to come to him, it was too late.
Julie Kiefer: Yeah, I'm sure that's a hard thing to realize. He was kind of a vet of sorts, he had to be. Did that play a role in your decision to go this way?
Jenna Murray: Yeah, he was a rancher and that comes with a lot of jobs all intertwined into one and so when I was a little kid, I would watch him treat some of the animals. He was stitching up a horse one day and I got to help him do that and even though we were treating an animal, still, just that role as participating in being a healer and getting to help care for an animal in that way was really exciting to me as a little kid and I think it was inspiring to him and he told me I was going to be a doctor someday. And it's so little, but I think that is just one little seed of probably many that was planted and kind of brought me to where I am today.
Julie Kiefer: It sounds like your growing up on that reservation and your culture is a big part of who you are but, as the film tells us, growing up, being in middle school, being in high school, like a lot of us, you just wanted to be like everyone else and hid that part of you. What made you come around again to appreciating where you had come from?
Jenna Murray: Yeah, so I was born and raised in Las Vegas away from the Rez and I spent a lot of time on the Rez, so I was really lucky as a kid to have both experiences growing up. As I got older, I just learned that a lot of my peers and just people in Las Vegas didn't really know a lot about native people. I think it was almost like a magical unicorn. People didn't actually think we really existed, and if they did, they thought that we looked a certain way and fell into this really specific stereotype.
Jenna Murray is a MD-PhD student at the University of Utah's School of Medicine.
So being someone with multiple identities, being mixed races, living in a city, but also having those experiences in rural Wyoming just started to get complicated and I dealt with a lot of people trying to tell me who I am and facing this feeling of like, okay, I'm not Native enough because I didn't grow up on the Rez, but also I don't fully fit in with you guys.
Just a lot of intersecting identities and I think when I was a teenager, it's like you're already going through a lot of hard stuff and you already don't know who you are. And then to throw that on top of it, it was really tough for me and I just kind of withdrew and really just hung out with my friends in Vegas and didn't spend quite as much time out on the Rez or as connected to my culture.
And I think just as I got older and I spent more time with my dad and especially after losing my grandfather, that really pushed me to go back and start learning more and getting more involved again. There's this saying that every time a Native elder dies, a library burns because we have oral storytelling and traditions and that's so true, and I found myself thinking like, oh man, there's so much I wish I could have learned from him and asked him, and so that, really, I think pushed me to try and learn more and really get engaged again.
Julie Kiefer: It sounds like it was a time when you were really rediscovering who you were and what authentic person you were.
Ross, you're an Oscar-award winning documentary filmmaker. What attracted you to Jenna's story?
Ross Kauffman: What attracted me to Jenna's story? Jenna attracted me to Jenna's story. Jenna attracted all of us to Jenna's story. She's an incredible person. Making these films, especially short films like this, even long films, feature films, it's all about character. It's all about the people you're portraying. And Jenna, right away we knew that she was special. She has a great story, but it's her personality and it's who she is that came through right away.
Julie Kiefer: Joe, there's so much in this story. What drew you to Jenna's story and what made you want to tell it?
Joe Borgenicht: There were some amazing connections in Jenna's story, and I think that will continue as we share it with the world. We had done three other films that were sort of known across campus and I was approached by Dr. Maija Holsti, who is the PI for the Native American Research Internship, and she shared the work that they were doing in that program and wondered if we would be interested in exploring a story there.
And I remember not maybe a week after she had called me, I was having coffee with my dad and both Jenna and Maija walked into the coffee shop and we sat down and started talking a little bit and the connections were crazy from the beginning. My father, who was a pediatrician in 1970, worked on the Wind River Reservation as a clinician in IHS, Indian Health Service, and so I spent the first two years of my life up there and I was just so drawn to that place and the possibilities of Jenna's story. And then she and my dad sat down at one point and made some connections that a book that my father had kind of read up on the history of the reservation was written by her grandfather.
And those initial kind of serendipitous connections, I think, gave me a lot of hope for this story because these stories, as we tell them, kind of start to take on magic of their own. And then as we started to talk to Jenna, it just became obvious it was not a question that if she was willing to be generous enough with us and with the world to share her story, that it would really be an incredible story to tell.
Julie Kiefer: Sounds like it was meant to be. Jenna, what was your reaction when Joe asked you if you wanted to be in the film?
Jenna Murray: Yeah, well, I think it kind of just grew really organically and naturally, which I think is why it turned out so beautifully because when we first were chatting, it was definitely more focused on NARI and maybe I was going to be interviewed for it, and it just really did grow from there. The more I talked to Joe and then I talked to Ross, it just really evolved and I think that's probably good.
I think if somebody came up to me and was like, Hey, I want to make a 10-minute film on just you and your story, I think I would've ran away! But because it just happened so naturally, we all clicked and I felt like there was trust and this really great mutual understanding of what we were trying to achieve, which is telling my story but as an example to touch on all these bigger themes of health disparities, stigma around substance use, getting more Natives into medicine, and those are all things that I care really deeply about. So, when it came the time, there wasn't really a question for me. I felt like it was something that really needed to be done in some capacity and just happened to be my story this time.
Julie Kiefer: Ross, it sounds like you two were able to connect together really well.
Ross Kauffman: Yeah. It's interesting because the film is co-directed by Alexandra Lazarowich and produced by Robin Honan and I love to collaborate and it was really the three of us just at all steps connecting with Jenna, connecting with her family, working creatively together. It was a real, not to be cliché, but it was a team effort and just all of us, sometimes it could be hard if you have three people sort of making a film about one person, but it was pretty seamless and we all had our connections that were and are very special.
Ross Kauffman is an Oscar Award-winning film maker.
Julie Kiefer: So, Jenna is an incredible person with a wonderful story, but it's also taking place in a beautiful place. How was it to go to that Wind River Reservation and film there and what did that add to the story?
Ross Kauffman: Well, the Wind River Reservation has an unfortunate reputation based on other films and media. It's been portrayed in not a wonderful light, and our experience was very different. It was a very open place, beautiful. I love the mountains, I love being out in nature. So, it was gorgeous, but it was really, it's always about the people and we were just welcomed so wonderfully by Jenna and her family and that's what makes the place special.
Julie Kiefer: So, the film is just beautifully told and beautiful to watch, but there's always a lot that goes on behind the scenes that the audience never sees, and sometimes what goes on behind the scenes is beautiful magic and sometimes it gets really hectic. What's an example of something that you had to pull together to make this story happen?
Ross Kauffman: Well, it's interesting. A film like this, it's a short film, we don't have a lot of time to actually spend in the location, right? A couple of days, two or three days to film at the most, and so that's always a challenge to really make the most use of your time and to really get the variety of footage and really tell the story visually and emotionally.
And one of the issues is that the place is so beautiful. All we wanted to do for a while was just shoot beautiful scenics—Jenna on her horse. I mean, we got so caught up in it. We have a wonderful cinematographer named Ed David, and Ed is the type of person when if you let him go, he will continue to shoot and shoot and shoot and not stop shooting. He will just go and he's wonderful. He's so talented. So, one of the hardest parts was reigning him in saying, Ed, we have to stop shooting, we have to go, we have to do that, we have to do this. But to Ed's credit, it's a gorgeously shot film and we are all lucky to work with him.
Julie Kiefer: Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful to watch. And I'm wondering what you learned from Jenna's story or from telling Jenna's story?
Ross Kauffman: I think anytime you're telling someone's story and they are dealing with death in a way that I haven't really had to deal with, the sudden death of a loved one, a grandfather, it's not like you can learn how to deal with that, right? There's no way possible you can learn, but just to have that experience and to talk with people and to really understand their story, it just gives me a moment to reflect on the fact that things are okay at the moment and to really appreciate that. I don't know if that's learning, but that was, it's really important.
I also . . . I'd never made a film about Indigenous people and just having that world opened up to me and to learn just about that world as much as I could learn in the short amount of time that we were there, that's a gift and that's a gift of this whole career is dipping into these different worlds and learning and understanding different people and different cultures and the challenges that people go through. So that was great.
Julie Kiefer: Well, and I've worked with you a little bit and I mean . . .
Ross Kauffman: You've worked with me a lot. We've worked together quite a bit . . .
Julie Kiefer: . . . and that's something I really admire about you is how you're able to talk with these people. It's an interview that you have in order to get the story for the film, but you're able to connect with these people in a way where they feel like they can be at their most vulnerable and you just listen and they tell you their story and that's what becomes the backbone of these different films. I'm wondering how your interaction was with Jenna when you were making this story. Was she forthcoming or was it a difficult story to figure out?
Ross Kauffman: First of all, no matter who I'm speaking with, whether it's a person in front of my camera or anybody anywhere, I think it's just about being a normal person. Not quote unquote interviewing, but just talking, right? And taking an interest and really caring. And when someone is in front of the camera and I'm behind the camera, I feel so protective over them. I mean, that's a real vulnerable spot to be in. And so much credit goes to Robin Hone and our producer, we do, even for a short film like this, we spend months beforehand, as you know, we've worked together. We spend months beforehand on Zoom and continue just talking and talking, really getting to know the people who we’re filming and have the opportunity to spend time with. And that's really important. And it's not like we do it because we want to make a film.
Yes, we're making a film, but you care about the people and you develop a relationship and that's so important and it needs to be natural. And we've worked together and when I'm interviewing somebody, when Robin and I are interviewing somebody, Alexandra, Robin and I are interviewing somebody, we're just being normal and we're just trying to be normal people having a nice conversation or a conversation that might be tough, but having a conversation and listening and just caring. You've seen me. If someone goes somewhere and they get emotional, you've seen me cry. It's like, I feel so connected and caring towards them. I give people so much credit who show their vulnerability in front of the camera.
Julie Kiefer: And so, what do you hope that people get out of Jenna's story in this film?
Ross Kauffman: That's always an interesting question. I hope people understand the challenges that Indigenous people face and have faced. That's one thing, but I honestly, I just want people to connect with people. So, for me, if people are watching this film and they connect with Jenna and they connect with her story and they hopefully will come to care about something other than their particular circumstances. For me, this is all about connecting people and creating, in a way, communities amongst people. So, my hope is that someone watches this film and their hearts opened up and they care about something that they had no idea they'd care about 10 minutes before when the film started.
Julie Kiefer: So, Joe, this film “Winding Path” is a really beautiful film, but it's actually the fourth in a series of films that you created called New Narratives in Health. What was your goal in setting up that series?
Joe Borgenicht: Yeah, the new Narratives in Health series was really founded on this idea, it was an idea that I stole from Tim Minchin, who's a rock opera comedian from Australia. I was googling graduation speeches because I was writing a graduation speech for the then-dean of the School of Medicine, and he presented this idea that scientists and artists needed to work more closely together to broadly communicate advances in knowledge.
And University of Utah Health at the time had just become the sponsor of Sundance, the official health and wellness sponsor, and so I guess my goal was to put scientists and artists together to broadly communicate advances in knowledge to see what happened when we took people who are very left brained and put them with people who are very right brained to share some of the incredible things that humans, I guess, are capable of. Yeah, that was, I think, the goal.
Julie Kiefer: And what are some of the examples of the stories that you've told so far?
Joe Borgenicht: The first was a film called “One in a Million,” which was about the Penelope Program, also started by Ed Clark coincidentally, that really was built on, is built on the strengths of genomics in Utah. The population database, which is the largest population database in the world, the analytics that we have developed here to search the human genome and the compassionate and expert doctors who met a young man named Tyler who had a terminal diagnosis when he was about 10, and they worked with him and used the genetic resources at the university to find a diagnosis for him that was treated with a supplement that was purchased at Costco or something like that. And really improved the quality of life for almost a decade. That film had a great impact in that it was used to help pass law in the Utah Legislature requiring insurance companies to pay for genomic tests for kids with rare and undiagnosed diseases.
The second film is called “Meet Me Where I Am.” It's about a population health clinic at the University of Utah. We wanted to make this film in part because not everybody knows what the term population health means unless you're in academic medicine. How can we make that idea more accessible to more people? And the other reason we wanted to make this film was because of Adolphus Nickleberry, who's the star of that film, and he just had an incredible story of resilience and healing and love that made sharing that story really powerful. That film was used to help double the size of the intensive outpatient clinic and, in part certainly, the people who run that clinic credit that film for helping people to understand what pop health is so that they can support it.
The third film we just did last year, it's called “The Language of Care.” It's about a group of deaf patients with diabetes who are helping, who formed a kind of a cabinet and are working with a nurse practitioner and researcher in the College of Nursing to help develop and improve the care that other deaf patients with diabetes get. That is just starting its life as it appeared in probably a dozen different film festivals and was recently featured on Science Friday. So, we're excited to see the impact of that.
Julie Kiefer: Yeah, and you so casually rattled off the huge impact that these films have had or are starting to have. What do you think is sparking that? What is it about these films that are eliciting such a reaction?
Joe Borgenicht: The production team, Ross Kauffman and Robin Honan and the other co-directing teams that we've brought in to help tell these stories have been able to make these very complicated topics incredibly emotionally accessible to people. When people can connect with an idea or a concept or a program on a visceral level, I think it helps people connect to the humanity of it and helps people realize that it's a no-brainer to support things like this. Why haven't we been doing this all this time? I think in part, people need to understand the impact of these programs on that visceral level in order to maybe let go of some preconceptions that they've had and get behind it and support it because it's just about our common humanity.
Julie Kiefer: It really showcases the power of excellent storytelling and excellent art.
Joe Borgenicht: The production team, they're just so talented and unbelievably skilled at what they do. The way they connected with Jenna and her story and her family and her willingness to trust us and them with her story, to help tell it and to help share it with the world, I feel grateful to be able to stand really close to that process and watch it. They are just instinctively and intuitively able to capture these moments that really communicate everything with one breath, and it's just beautiful to be a part of.
Julie Kiefer: So you mentioned the Native American Research Internship program here at the University of Utah, and that was part of your journey, too. Can you tell us a little bit about that program?
Jenna Murray: Yeah, it's a great program. It's based here at the U. It's open to any Native American student in the United States. You don't have to go to undergrad at the U. So, I was not an undergrad student, and the program brought me out in both 2015 and 2016. I did it for two summers. I loved it so much, brought me out to the U and they pay for your housing here and they connect you with a research mentor and you get 10 weeks of hands-on clinical or bench research experience, which is huge if you want to go into medicine, even nursing, any sort of health or biomedical science career, that kind of experience is really invaluable.
And so not only do you get that aspect, you also get cultural mentorship. You get to meet other Native students who have similar goals to you because it can feel really isolating in institutions like my undergraduate institution. Yeah, it was great. I made so many mentors and really got a lot of hands-on experience, and I really credit the NARI program with a lot of getting me to where I am today. Of course, there's other things that go into it. I know I worked hard, too, but it really opened so many doors for me.
Julie Kiefer: There's this part of NARI that you talked about where you get to be with other students who have similar backgrounds to you. Why is that important? What does that do for you?
Jenna Murray: I know for me, when I was an undergrad, I went to a pretty wealthy private, liberal arts college and I just did not connect with a lot of my classmates. A lot of people coming from really, really wealthy families or just multiple generations of physicians, almost like they were born to go into medicine. It wasn't even a question. Whereas I didn't have any family members who were physicians. I didn't really know what I was doing.
There's a lot of gatekeeping in medicine and getting into medical school, and these are just things I had no idea about. And so it can feel really inaccessible. And then to actually be paired and grouped together with people who have similar feelings and experiences to you is really empowering, actually. It's like you can bounce ideas off each other and not feel stupid and you can relate to each other, and those connections are just so invaluable. And it really did build my confidence. I saw my colleagues, my fellow interns, doing these things, getting into medical school, getting a Ph.D. and thinking like, okay, I can do that, too, this is someone that I did this program with in 2015. If they can do it, I can do it, too, and I can reach out to them and get feedback and mentorship, and that's just so incredible.
Julie Kiefer: NARI also has this cultural mentorship that you mentioned. Explain what that is and how that helped you with your journey, too.
Jenna Murray: Yeah. The really great and unique thing about NARI is they pair you with a cultural mentor. And so your mentors are people who are also Native American and they’re faculty members or they’re community members who aren't even in medicine or one was a physician. There's different people just in the Salt Lake Valley that come together and provide that cultural mentorship for you. So, for me, that looked like my mentor connecting me with different community events that were happening during my summers, like powwows, just get-togethers, helping me meet other people who maybe weren't even in medicine, but just Native students that I could connect with and hang out with. It was really grounding. They definitely brought you back to your principles and really how do you think deeply about what you're doing, not just here for the summer, but how this fits in with your goals and your family and your life and your values. And it's just so grounding to have somebody do that for you and to do that understanding what maybe traditional values or practices that you have and respecting that and also encouraging you to hold onto that part as you go into Western medicine.
Julie Kiefer: Sounds like a really special experience. So, your culture and your experiences are so different than so many others who are in medicine and in research. How do you think that will enhance you as a doctor and a researcher?
Jenna Murray: Yeah, something I think about a lot is how many Indigenous people view health. A lot of us don't think about it just as physical health. There's also mental, emotional and spiritual health and all of those are equally important. So, it doesn't matter if you come in with just high blood pressure, we also need to think, are you being socially supported? Are you able to access mental wellness services? And that's something that we've done for centuries. We've always looked at a person as a whole person, not just at their physical aspects or physical health.
And I do think that's something that Western medicine is starting to try and do more, but I think that's something that's just so ingrained in Native people that is really unique and important that they can bring to medicine. And I think the only way to really help mitigate or help, to help get rid of some of these health disparities is to actually recruit people from the communities that need the help. And so for me, I feel comfortable if I get the opportunity to go back on my reservation and work and serve Native people. I feel comfortable doing that and excited to do that, whereas I think people from outside of the community may not feel the same.
Julie Kiefer: You can relate to what they're going through. You can offer suggestions for things that they could do to change behaviors.
Jenna Murray: Yeah.
Joe Borgenicht: Can I add something to that thought? Dr. Holste mentioned Dr. Ed Clark, who started the NARI program, put it in the context of Indigenous people experience a lot of health disparities and the people who are going to fix that best are the people who are affected most, which was just such a great vision for the program.
Julie Kiefer: Yeah, absolutely. So pretty soon all of the world will have the opportunity to learn about you, Jenna, and your amazing story. What do you hope that they'll take away from it?
Jenna Murray: My story is just one example of many peoples’, and I hope people can see that when they watch it. I hope that they look at it and they think deeply about just these underlying issues about how do we get better access to care to not just Native populations, but our Utah rural populations to our city populations who are underserved? How do we expand care for folks who need it? How do we prevent these preventable deaths? How do we get people primary care services?
And then on the other hand, I hope people just start thinking a little bit deeper about what it means to have substance use disorders and to deal with addiction and to maybe let go of some of those stereotypes that I think a lot of us hold when we think about somebody struggling with it and just start to talk more about it and really break stigma. That's something I care a lot about, and one of the big drivers for me doing this and sharing my story is trying to break stigma and just normalize it.
Julie Kiefer: Well, and this is actually the fourth film you've done with Joe Borgenicht and the films that have been done so far have had a huge impact. Do you think it's because these films are able to make this connection that you're talking about?
Ross Kauffman: Well, I'm not just saying this because I'm here on campus, but the university has been incredible and Joe has been amazing, Joe Borgenicht, who's really been the person who has made this happen. Is that fair to say, Julie?
Julie Kiefer: Yeah, absolutely.
Ross Kauffman: Joe Borgenicht is amazing. He's really just such an open person and kind of a beautiful soul. And these films actually reflect him as much as they reflect the approach that we take. I've seen Joe cry during the interviews, too, and you have as well. And I think it's all of us together making something that we really care about and caring about the people who are sharing their stories with us.
I also wanted to say, I just want to thank the university for giving us these opportunities to tell these meaningful stories and to create change. Sometimes people will say that's the most important thing is for films to make change, whether it's “One in a Million” . . .
People talk about social impact, creating legislation and creating change in statistics and things like that. For me, what I would hope that people take away, I just want people to care and to feel and understand someone else. And if we can get someone to understand and care about someone else, then the rest will fall into place. That's the hope.
Julie Kiefer: Heather Kahlert is another person who's been instrumental to this film series. What has she brought to this endeavor?
Joe Borgenicht: Yeah, so Heather Kahlert is the president of The Kahlert Foundation, and they have supported all four of these films fully. Heather's just incredible. She caught the vision for these films early on, her support, her enthusiasm, her trust has just been instrumental to our ability to capture and share and tell these stories in every case. She's just been a great partner in this process and I'm really fortunate to be partnered with her in this project. She's really a force behind all of this.
Julie Kiefer: “Winding Path” is an official selection at Sundance and this isn't your first go-round in Sundance. So, what are you looking forward to?
Ross Kauffman: Well, I've been here at Sundance, this is the fourth film that I've had at Sundance. In my very first film, I was just talking to someone just before we were part of the very first composer's lab in 2003. Unfortunately, that dates me a little bit, but it was a wonderful experience and Sundance is so special to me. What the institute and everybody at Sundance has done for me and my career and thus the films that I've been able to make is tremendous. I can't really put in words the impact that Sundance has had on me as a filmmaker and as a person. So, I am very much looking forward to coming here again. Sundance is always a wonderful, crazy wild week in the mountains and, yeah, it's going to be fun.
Julie Kiefer: And what can we expect? What's next for the series?
Joe Borgenicht: We have the World premiere on Saturday. The chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities is coming to moderate a panel on Sunday before the screening then, and then I think there are five or six other film festivals lined up right behind those. I think this year probably will be focused on getting as much attention onto this film as possible and the NARI program and the issues that it presents. I think that's going to be a full-time job. So, I can't promise that there'll be another film this time next year. I think it's possible, but right now we want to put a lot of time and energy into sharing this really, really broadly.
Julie Kiefer: And for those of us who won't make it to Sundance this year, where can we watch “Winding Path” right now?
Joe Borgenicht: Right now, unless we pick up distribution with a docs company or something like that, right now, the film's going to spend a couple of months on the festival circuit. If you know Jenna, you could email her and she could sneak you the password for the screener on Vimeo, but it'll be, if you go to NARIutah.org, that website will give you access to a film that's just about the NARI program, and then in a little while “Winding Path” will join that website. You can also see the other films on that page as well.
Julie Kiefer: That's fantastic. Jenna, Ross and Joe, thank you today for being my guests on U Rising.
Joe Borgenicht: Thanks for having us.
Jenna Murray: Thank you so much.
Ross Kauffman: Thank you, Julie. And thank you to the university and it's a pleasure being here.
Julie Kiefer: Listeners, that's it for today's episode of U Rising. Our executive producer is Brooke Adams, and our technical producer is Robert Nelson. I'm Julie Kiefer. Thanks for listening.