Clan
A family and historical drama series created by Kathryn Machi
Inspired by her Cherokee family and based on true events.
Logline: In the social upheaval of 1969 San Francisco, June Rose Wilder, a traditional housewife and mother of three teenagers, discovers her Cherokee heritage and defies her husband—and her Cherokee father—to immerse herself in her newfound culture, unraveling decades-old secrets and triggering a family crisis.
1969 San Francisco bursts with protests, police, and Flower Power, the once-conservative city now dead center for the youth rebellion. Hippies, runaways, and protesters jostle with businessmen and society matrons on the patchouli-laced streets while John and Yoko's "Give Peace a Chance" shares airtime with U.S. bombings in Cambodia. Sesame Street debuts on TV while news of the Zodiac Killer strikes terror into every woman's soul, and leaders of all races and intents gather young acolytes like plums ripe for the picking.
On the quiet western edge of San Francisco where the foghorn plays an almost nightly lullaby, erstwhile college reporter and rumba queen June Rose is a secretly lonely, outwardly model housewife tending to her family with the dedication of a ruby-lipped saint. But when she accidentally discovers that her grandmother was a full-blood Cherokee, June determines to learn more. She returns to college where she meets the Indians of All Tribes and connects passionately with Nathan Blackthorn, her charismatic Lakota professor.
As June learns the devastating true history, modern plight, and determined fortitude of indigenous Americans, she abandons her middle-class comforts for a bunk on Alcatraz, then a bed in the County mental ward as she launches into a journey of her indigenous roots. A wrenching identity crisis forces June's marriage, faith, and sanity to the breaking point as she earns a personal and political voice and, above all, peace with her ancestors.
“She Speaks for Her Clan” by Dorothy Sullivan
Awards:
The Black List Indigenous List 2022
IllumiNative Pop Culture Finalist Producers Track 2022
Finalist Coverfly Pitch Week Spring 2022
Quarterfinalist, The Script Lab TV Pilot 2021
Quarterfinalist, Final Draft Big Break 2020
MAIN CHARACTERS:
JUNE ROSE WILDER (44): Deserted by her father at an early age and abandoned emotionally by her Irish Catholic mother, college reporter-rumba queen-war bride June, now the “perfect” housewife, harbors a lifetime identity crisis. When she finally reconnects with her father and learns of her Cherokee roots, she strikes out on a journey that radically changes her life and that of her family.
TOM WILDER (50): June’s WWII Navy commander husband and erstwhile high school football star was her hero, once. Now a hulk of PTSD and alcohol-fueled frustration, Tom is a domineering husband and father, condemning June’s sudden veer into Native ways, and her newborn connection with her father, whom Tom resents and distrusts.
MARTIN GOODE (60s): June's father Martin fled Indian Country as a boarding school survivor—and criminal: He killed the man who murdered his white father. Hiding his alcoholism and manic depression, he has just buried his third (white) wife and retired with a city pension. He is a poster boy for unsuccessful “rehabilitation.”
NATHAN BLACKTHORN (40s): A Sioux Marine who fought, like Tom, in the Pacific Corridor, Stanford educated Professor Blackthorn is a man of action who soars with high ideals, a poet’s heart, and sudden violence. A human chessboard of passion and philosophy, Nathan wins June’s heart as an almost-identical model of her father.
SEAN WILDER (19): Ex-football star now scruffy surfer, Sean’s passion for justice is ignited during the SF State Strike for Equality. His arrest estranges him from his father but endears him to June, whose eyes are irrevocably opened to “What’s Happening.”
ISABEL “ZAZIE” WILDER (17): High-spirited Zazie takes part in every adolescent rebellion San Francisco has to offer. Expressing herself with fashion, art, and sensuality, she strives to find her footing within her fractured family and the world. She studies psychology at Berkeley and has an affair with a macho Black radical but falls in true love with his sister.
BERNADETTE WILDER (14): Intellectual, introverted, and pious, Bernadette is the favorite of Sean and Tom. She suffers from the disruption of her family, and mostly takes the side of her father. A gifted musician, Bernadette is drafted into an all-girls band and inadvertently tumbles into the dark side of rock and roll.
AUGUSTA ROSE (60s): Martin’s sister, subtle, tenacious, darkly humorous Augusta survived boarding school, forced sterilization, and the Tulsa Massacre—her husband was a Black physician, murdered by white supremacists. A trained psychotherapist, Augusta is now a traditional Cherokee healer and recluse.
ABOUT KATHRYN MACHI
An enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a dual U.S.-French citizen, Kathryn Machi came of age bodysurfing, reading the Beats, and writing bad poetry in Santa Cruz, CA. In San Francisco, she studied journalism and modern dance, performing with a punk band and a Brazilian dance troupe while aiming for a gig as a nightclub hostess/undercover reporter in Tokyo. A (benign) brain tumor prevented that adventure, but its aftermath took her to Paris for the first time, where she met her husband.
Back in SF, as a mother of two young children and while helming a holistic therapy practice, Kathryn earned her MFA in creative writing, finding her passion in the visual poetry of screenwriting. Her Cherokee-led dance feature, FIREBIRD, an homage to Maria Tallchief, and TV series, CLAN (previous title JUNE ROSE), are both on the Indigenous List, representing "the best and most promising Native creatives in the film and television industry." Kathryn is a member of the Writers Guild of America West, Women in Film SFBA, and Cherokee Nation Writers Group. She and her husband live on the western edge of San Francisco.