Scottish filmmaker tours Scotland with film that explores Native American experience

Steven Lewis Simpson is an independent film and documentary filmmaker from Aberdeen, Scotland. In 2016 he released the film "Neither Wolf Nor Dog", which is an adaption of the award winning book, with the same name, by Kent Nerburn. Steven Lewis Simpson's film's film festival premiere was at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2016. He took the unusual step of releasing the film directly into US cinemas in 2017. It continues in first-run cinemas in 2019, making it the longest first-run theatrical release in the US in over ten years. He is now taking it around venues in Scotland ahead of the film's wider release in Britain.

The film explores experiences faced by contemporary Native Americans. It is mostly set in Dakota, the plot follows an author who has been asked by a 95-year-old Lakota elder to write a book about his life. The film stars Chief Dave Bald Eagle in the lead role as a Lakota elder. He has also previously appeared in other films, including the Oscar-winning 1990 film Dances With Wolves. Chief Bald Eagle, who sadly passed away in 2016 at the age of 97, was the grandson of Chief White Bull, who fought in the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25–26 1876. The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. It resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces and was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876.

The film "Neither Wolf Nor Dog" also features a scene shot at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. It was near the Wounded Knee Creek on December 29, 1890, that the Wounded Knee Massacre resulting in the murder of several hundred Lakota Indians, mostly women and children, was committed by soldiers of the United States Army. Chief Dave Bald Eagle, with his family connections to the murdered victims, discarded the script during filming and spoke from the heart. Before he died he saw the film and he said "it's the only film I've been in about my people that told the truth."