Vancouver filmmaker’s work draws portrait of Buffalo Soldiers

The complicated history of the Buffalo Soldiers gets a nuanced exploration in Vancouver filmmaker Dru Holley’s documentary, “Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts.”

The hourlong film screens twice during the ongoing Portland Film Festival: at 10 p.m. Monday and at 12:15 p.m. Oct. 23. Holley, who conceived and directed the documentary, will attend the second screening.

“Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts” traces why newly free but needy Black Americans chose to enlist with the U.S. Army in the aftermath of the Civil War. Six all-Black regiments were sent to the Southwest and the Great Plains and tasked with a wide variety of responsibilities, from building roads and guarding the U.S. mail to protecting westbound settlers.

Known as Buffalo Soldiers, they also played an important role in subjugating tribes, breaking labor strikes and fighting imperial wars abroad.

“The daily work would have ranged from the mundane to the terrifying,” Greg Shine, the former chief ranger and historian for Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, says in the film. “They were almost like a police force.”

Holley’s film examines the Buffalo Soldiers’ complex legacy through interviews with historians and descendants as well as archival photos, animated sequences and historical reenactments.