In director Colleen Thurston’s exceptional feature documentary, DROWNED LAND, history, water rights and family collide into a scathing expose on public / private 
sector corruption that threatens to destroy the lives of thousands of powerless people. Winding its way through southeastern Oklahoma, the Kiamichi River is a bastion of ecological diversity. Already twice-dammed, the state of Oklahoma and a Texas corporation are now trying to dam and divert the remaining water from the river.. For a group of locals, this isn’t just a fight for the Kiamichi River; it is a lifelong reckoning with the cycle of land theft and displacement that began with the Trail of Tears. Now, in a region 
where the community relies on the Kiamichi’s ecosystem for subsistence, taking the water out of the watershed could mean yet another relocation. The narrative arc follows the river as its main character—witnessing the ebb and flow of its life-giving ability through the seasons, and the detrimental impact caused by damming and development projects. The director, Colleen, explores the effects of her grandfather’s work 
designing dams for the Army Corps of Engineers, her tribe’s ongoing struggles with resource exploitation, and how it shapes her reconciliation of the past with the present. 
Interwoven are the stories of the river’s advocates—residents, Choctaw culture-keepers, and scientists— who have come together to save the river and initiate a paradigm shift grounded in ideals of re-matriation and the Rights of Nature, reinforcing a commitment to end the cycle of disconnection from our land. Director Colleen Thurston stops to talk about the importance of water, local control of vital resources, and our primal connection to land and our shared history.
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About the filmmaker – Colleen Thurston is a documentary storyteller, producer and film curator from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has created non-fiction film and videos for the Smithsonian Channel, Vox, and museums, public television, and federal and tribal organizations. Her work has screened at international film festivals and broadcast nationwide. Grounding her practice in place-based narratives, her films intertwine Indigenous world views and center exploratory artistic approaches. In 2025 Colleen is premiering her first feature documentary, DROWNED LAND, which examines the cycle of displacement as it is related to resource extraction in her tribe, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Colleen is a current Tulsa Artist Fellow and an International Documentary Association Fellow
FEATURED KIAMACHI RIVER ADVOCATES
Dr. Ken Roberts – Local landowner on Kiamichi, Chairperson for the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Tulsa. President of the Kiamichi River Legacy Alliance.
Sandy Stroud (Choctaw) – Community based researcher with the Choctaw Nation, culture keeper, a self identified “voice of the River”.
Lauren Haygood – PhD candidate in Geosciences at Oklahoma State University, with research focused on paleoenvironmental reconstructions of Quaternary marine sediments and a background in metal biogeochemistry of river environments
Betty & Joe Brown – Long-time Sardis residents who maintain the cemetery. They lost their land and recollect their neighbors similar fates.
Charlotte Robbins Leonard (Choctaw) – is a Kiamichi River basin landowner and water protector for the river. She advocates for food sustainability and sovereignty through the wild foods and plants she grows and harvests along the river.
SOCIAL MEDIA
facebook.com/colleen.thurston.14
instagram.com/drownedland_film
instagram.com/deadcenterfilm
instagram.com/peteograham
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