News
Lack of film incentives a roadblock, but South Dakota film industry still growing
September 17, 2025/
Last month, 1,100 theaters across the country showed a movie ostensibly set in rural South Dakota. The film, “Americana,” features Sydney Sweeney as a small-town diner waitress on the hunt for a rare Lakota ghost shirt. Singer Halsey and Hunkpapa Lakota actor Zahn McLarnon also star.
However, South Dakotans who watched “Americana” may have left confused at how the state was portrayed – vast, arid deserts and low, Southwestern-style buildings.
That’s because it was shot entirely in New Mexico.
