Hail To The Breadsticks!

Writer producer Donick Cary (Letterman, Simpsons, Parks and Recreation, Have a Good Trip) has been a huge fan of the Washington D.C. pro football team since before he could walk. Passed down from his dad, he was excited to pass the tradition onto his son.

Donick never questioned whether the name, the Redsk**s, was good or bad until five years ago when his 9-year-old son, Otis, asked him if it was racist. Donick and Otis didn’t exactly have a rolodex of Native American friends to talk to about it. In “Hail to The Breadsticks!”, we join them on a cross-country journey to find out—not just how Native Americans feel about mascots and representation— but what it means to be Native American in the USA today.

This timely feature-length documentary’s journey starts simply but takes some unexpected turns and runs smack into our current moment of national racial reflection. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, but never shying away from confronting the uncomfortable Donick and Otis dig into some big questions: Who is Native American today? Can something be racist if it isn’t meant to be? How is racism passed on from generation to generation? How can there really be 570+ federally recognized sovereign nations within the United States that are basically completely invisible. The answers may surprise you.

While Donick and Otis’ journey provides a spine to the story the STARS (and bulk) of the film are the 75 plus Native American interviewees they talked to. From the halls of Congress (Deb Haaland) to Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange, from real life “Reservation Dogs” (teens on the Pine Ridge rez) to the creator of the show Reservation Dogs Sterlin Harjo, from Athabaskan Alaska to Acoma Sky City (oldest inhabited city in Americas), the film brings to light the stories of Native Americans from all walks of life and corners of the United States. Comedy interstitials help tackle hard truths and featuring some big names from Native American cinema like Graham Greene, Irene Bedard and Jana Schmieding. The film uses Simpsons-level animation to illuminate many of the stories and is ultimately turned over to Native American artists, writers, comedians, dancers, musicians, and storytellers for a tough but optimistic leap into the future.

Meet the Filmmakers

Donick Cary

Writer / Director

is an Emmy-winning writer and producer who got his start writing for Late Night with David Letterman. He continued working with the show through its move to CBS, serving as both head writer and the “guy in the bear suit” on The Late Show with David Letterman. After five years in late night, Cary moved to The Simpsons, where he served as a co-executive producer for four seasons. He has served the same capacity writing and producing on the series Just Shoot Me, New Girl, Bored to Death, Silicon Valley, Parks and Recreation and AP Bio. In addition to Hail to the Breadsticks! Cary released his first documentary, Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, which debuted on Netflix on May 11, 2020 and spent its first 30 days in the top ten, peaking at #3 overall in the U.S.

Jill Ellen Karp

Executive Producer

serves on the Facing History & Ourselves Board of Directors and Development Committee, was Chair of the New England Advisory Board from 2011 to 2015, and prior to that served on the Board of Directors since 2007, the Board of Trustees since 2003, and the New England Advisory Board since 2000. She and her husband, Stephen, chaired the 2006 New England Benefit Dinner She also co-chaired the Upstanders: Portraits of Courage exhibit. In addition to Facing History, Jill is a member on the boards of the Nantucket Film Festival, Nantucket Book Festival, Nantucket Comedy Festival, Boston Youth Sanctuary, Grub Street as well as Ploughshares. Jill is also an active member of Getting To We, an organization that works on cross racial friendships and relations.

Bryan Porter

Executive Producer

is a champion of community, culture and the arts through corporate and philanthropic action. He co-founded Seeing Red Media, which seeks to amplify the representations, voices and visions of Indigenous storytellers as well as seeingred.org, an online hub for social justice that seeks to increase the representation and cultural accuracy of Indigenous people in mainstream media. Porter (Traditional name Tehah^tiyaks) is committed to forging bold new paths for his community while honoring the traditional trade routes of those before him.

Stevie Salas

Executive Producer

is globally recognized guitarist, composer, and recording artist who has sold
over two million solo albums around the world as well as the Emmy-nominated Executive Producer of the feature film, RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World. Of proud Apache descent, Salas spent his early years working with a wide range of musicians including Mick Jagger, Bootsy Collins, Public Enemy, George Clinton, Justin Timberlake, and Rod Stewart. He provided the guitar score for Bill And Teds Excellent Adventure, and also had his hands double appearing for George Carlin’s for the now famous, climactic, guitar solo scene. From 2006-2010, he served as a music director and consultant for 19 Ent/American Idol, working with Chris Daughtry, David Cook, Chris Allen, Jordin Sparks, and Adam Lambert. He is currently the Chief Creative Officer/ Executive Producer of Seeing Red 6Nations, an Indigenous-owned media company, based on Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, as well as a member of the reconstituted, legendary
rock band, the MC5.

Joshua Neuman

Producer

is a journalist and documentary filmmaker whose career has spanned magazines, television, film, and academia. He has appeared on BBC Radio, VH1, A & E Biography, National Public Radio, and Extra and his speaking engagements have taken him from Comic-Con to the United Nations to the Super Bowl. Neuman grew up in Paramus, New Jersey, graduated from Brown University, and received a Master’s Degree from the Harvard Divinity School. He is currently writing a book about former owners of the
Los Angeles Rams,
Carroll Rosenbloom and Georgia Frontiere. 

Joey Clift

Consulting Producer

is a comedian, TV writer, and enrolled Cowlitz Indian Tribal Member. He went to college to be a local TV weather person, because as a kid he didn’t see any Native American comedians on television which led him to believe he wasn’t allowed to work in the entertainment industry. Over the years he’s learned that’s absolutely not true and he’s written for many shows and projects including Spirit Rangers on Netflix, New Looney Tunes on Cartoon Network and Molly of Denali on PBS. He also created, wrote and directed “Gone Native,” a Comedy Central digital series about weird racial microaggressions Native American people often deal with, and his award-winning short films have screened everywhere from Just For Laughs to The Smithsonian Museum. Most importantly, he started the LA Underground Cat Network, which is a 16,000-member strong Facebook group for Los Angeles comedians to share pictures of their cats. He’s kind of a cat guy.

Josh Roush

Dir. of Photography

worked extensively with Kevin Smith for nearly a decade, including the recent Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. Roush is also working on his own documentary, 
Long Lonesome Highway: The Story of Michael Parks.

Liv Banks

Co-Producer

Unit production manager in the Director’s Guild of America and a production coordinator in IATSE. Some of her credits include Charlie Says, and Bad Hair and the recent Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.