A group of filmmakers, runners, walkers, and spectators will meet at Gubbins Perfect Fit in East Hampton Friday at 8 a.m. for a community 5K run and walk to Main Beach and back that is connected to the Hamptons International Film Festival screening of the documentary “Remaining Native.”
The event was organized by the team behind the film, along with Edwin Garcia of the Hamptons Run Club and Geary Gubbins of the Gubbins sporting goods stores, and will be the latest in a series of community runs organized to accompany the film’s screenings around the world.
“There’s kind of an exclusivity when it comes to the festival screenings, where not every community is invited in,” explained Paige Bethmann, the film’s director, during a Zoom call last week. “The run has made it more possible to invite folks in, and work with people and organizations who can give access to the story in the film.”
The documentary (which will be screened at 5:30 p.m. Thursday in Southampton, and at 2:30 Friday in East Hampton) follows Kutoven (Ku) Stevens, a 17-year-old Native American runner living on the Paiute reservation in Yerington, Nevada, who is competing to attract the attention of recruiters for the University of Oregon’s highly selective track and field program, despite having no coach and being the only runner at his high school.
He is also processing complex generational trauma, and organizes a 50-mile
Remembrance Run to commemorate his great-grandfather, who escaped from a federally funded Indian boarding school at the age of 8 by running 50 miles through the desert, back to his ancestral land. Ku created the run in 2021, after learning that 215 unmarked graves, thought to contain the remains of indigenous children, had been discovered on the former grounds of a boarding school in Kamloops, Canada.
“My great-grandmother attended one of these boarding schools, and it was something that I grew up knowing through my grandmother, who always was very purposeful about making sure that my brother and I knew where we came from,” said Ms. Bethmann. Her family is Haudenosaunee, from upstate New York, and she learned about Ku’s story while working for Vox Media in New York City, after a friend sent her an article about the run. She reached out to his mother with the idea of documenting the event, and went on to spend the next three-and-a-half years in Nevada, filming and getting to know the community.
“When we got there, I realized it was so much deeper than just the run itself,” she said. “I think for me, it was kind of seeing Ku step into this leadership role, and understand that his history doesn’t need to hold him back, but actually will help move him forward. And learning how we have to carry that, because as Native people, we can’t detach ourselves from our history.”
After wrapping, the team wanted to recreate some sense of the Remembrance Run in the communities they would be visiting on the festival circuit, and organized their first 5K in Austin during the South by Southwest festival. They have held nine runs so far, which have ranged in size from about 500 participants to “just a bunch of kids running around a four-block radius.”
Edwin Garcia, the founder of the Hamptons Run Club, received an email asking whether he would be interested in helping to organize a run in East Hampton before the screening in the village. He then spoke with Ku’s mother, Misty Stevens, who works on the film’s impact team, and she explained more about what they were hoping to do through the community runs.
“I’m like, ‘oh, this sounds really cool,’ “ Mr. Garcia recalled. “I get what Ku says — you get good ideas while you’re running by yourself, and any frustration you have, it just clears your head.” He started the Hamptons Run Club during the pandemic, but said that it “really took off” about a year and a half ago. Earlier this year he established it as a mental health nonprofit, and it will hold its first fund-raiser on Saturday evening. Dubbed “No Matter What,” it will be held at the Lululemon store on Main Street from 5:30 to 8; admission is $60 and includes a T-shirt.
“With running in general, people get really intimidated, but I always tell them to just show up,” he said. “You can walk, jog, or a combination of the two. I always give a route, and that’s what I’ll do on the day of the documentary, but you could come back at the library, you could come back at the traffic light. As long as you participate and get out there and meet new people, that’s what it’s all about.”
“I appreciate getting to run in a group, because you get the endorphins from running and the opportunity to combine that with community, and watching others improve,” said Geary Gubbins, who offered to host the community run after learning about it from Mr. Garcia. “What’s so special about what Edwin is organizing is that, no matter what, they’re out there every Saturday, bringing people together and encouraging people of all levels to get out there in the community. So whenever he gets involved in something, we jump at the opportunity to work with him.”
Mr. Gubbins contacted representatives from New Balance, who were “super excited” by the idea of the run. They offered to bring out demo shoes of popular sneaker models for participants to test out during the run, and Gubbins will be offering a storewide 10-percent discount to everyone who takes part in the event. The filmmakers also invited members of the Shinnecock Nation, who will be drumming at the end of the event.
“I think the concept behind ‘Remaining Native’ is that it’s a choice. It’s a choice to participate in your culture, and that is how we continue it, despite the obstacles in our lives,” said Ms. Bethmann. “We as Native people have known this history for a very long time, and I hope that survivors and descendants can see themselves reflected in the story, and feel the sense of hope that when we come together in these spaces as a community, healing is possible.”