Two communication professors and a library director will show their documentary today at a film festival in San Francisco.

“Lincoln and Black Hawk” was produced by Drew VandeCreek, director of digitization for university libraries, directed by communication professor Jeff Chown and edited by assistant communication professor Laura Vazquez.

The showing will take place at the Galaxy Theatre as part of the 30th annual American Indian Film Festival, which is sponsored by the American Indian Film Institute.

The movie focuses on the myth of a meeting between Abraham Lincoln and Black Hawk, a member of the Sauk Indians. They never actually met one another.

“The film ultimately shows how we represent Indian lives and what were the myths circulating around Indians at the time,” Vazquez said.

The group came up with the idea for the film after seeing a statue of Lincoln and Black Hawk in Oregon, Ill., Vasquez said.

The documentary premiered April 28 at NIU. It took three years to make and is 52 minutes long. The documentary was funded by two Illinois Humanities Council grants, and costs totaled about $20,000.

“Professor Chown, Drew and myself went out and did all the interviews, research, editing and graphics,” Vasquez said.

Along with the research, the group also put together the images for the documentary.

“It was a challenge to find all the images since film requires so many more images than one would think,” VandeCreek said.

The documentary features interviews with top historians the group gathered from around the country, Vasquez said.

Among these historians are Cecil Eby of the University of Michigan, Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College and John Mack Faragher of Yale University.

Along with being selected for the American Indian Film Festival, the film also will air on WTTW Channel 11, Vasquez said.

“We look at how these two cultures define masculinity,” Vasquez said. “What was masculinity saying about an Indian brave?”