KAYSVILLE — Davis High School’s award-winning film club is working on a new documentary about the Shoshone Indians.

Last year, the club developed a film about the tradition of excellence at Davis High, which won the Freedom Foundation award. This year the club is doing a documentary on the Shoshone Indians’ Bear River Massacre that occurred in 1863 near Preston, Idaho. This massacre is one of the biggest in history, killing 250 Shoshone, including 90 women and children.

With the help of Davis High counselor Julie Schueller, the club was invited to the Shoshone’s Bear River Massacre Memorial Service. Club members were given permission to shoot footage on the reservation and interview tribal members who are descendants of massacre survivors.

“The best student organizations are the ones driven by those students with passion and dedication,” said club advisor Linda Greenwood. “That is why this club is so successful.”

Matthew Habertz is president of this club and founder, starting it two years ago with the support of Greenwood, his multi-media teacher. Habertz completed an internship with noted film maker T.C. Christensen a couple of summers ago, which built his interest in filmmaking and inspired him to begin the film club in his school.

The club has approximately 20 members, a mix of sophomores, juniors and seniors.

They meet often, dividing up into committees to shoot projects, write scripts, gather footage, plan their stories, review how to speak respectively, and more.

“I am so impressed with how professionally they deal with everything,” said Greenwood.

The club hopes the Bear River Massacre documentary will open up the history of this event. The club also hopes the film’s effects and personal information for students will help it become a part of junior high school history classes about Utah. They do plan to enter the film into the Freedom Foundation Contest, as well as the Southern Utah International Documentary Contest.

The film club is working on other projects as well, including a character-building film on peer pressure, and a story about the life of a teen.