Brooklyn Demme learned the heartbeat of filmmaking in the field from his dad, the deeply loving, academy award winner Jonathan Demme. The last film Jonathan directed was the first one Brooklyn produced: Protection Not Protest: The People of Standing Rock (2016).

Through this film they met the hereditary stewards of their home region — The Ramapough Lenape Nation, who at that point, in 2016, were working to maintain access to their prayer land against the racist efforts of the township of Mahwah. Jonathan visited the Split Rock Sweetwater prayer camp, camera in hand, with the intentions of making a film with them. Brooklyn accompanied his dad there, but not as a filmmaker. Shortly thereafter, Jonathan passed away, and it took a year for Brooklyn to find his place  in the movement for Indigenous Sovereignty in the Eastern Woodlands — with camera in hand.

Thanks to the encouragement, friendship, warm welcome, and love of tribal members including Two Clouds, Chief Perry, Pointsetta, and Norris Branham of the Sand Hill Band, and many others, Brooklyn had the chance to create his first short documentary The Place Where the People Gather: Akuy Eenda Maawehlaang (2019).

He received deep internal healing in the honored  process of telling his Ramapough Lenape' relatives’ story in film and learned that the gift of storytelling is in itself a precious community resource, which we will all do well to respect. He learned that a person’s proximity to the story they’re telling determines, on a certain level, how powerful their story can be. As a result, Brooklyn learned that in order to meaningfully support movements for Native sovereignty and Black freedom as a White filmmaker from a privileged class background, his praxis must include mentorship for Black and Native filmmakers.

Inspired by this revelation, he co-founded an organization called Truth 2 Power which brings people together at the intersection of community, education and film. 5 years later, with Brooklyn’s mentorship, first time filmmaker, Truth 2 Power co-founder Ashley Dawson wrote and directed That Kid (2025) to premier at the LA Underground Railroad Film Festival.

In 2023 Brooklyn and Ashley offered a free and open credit bearing film course entitled Honoring African Cultural Continuity in Film. The following season he directed his first fictional feature length film entitled Mountain Lion (2024), under the spiritual leadership of his mentor Norris Spotted War Turtle Branham of the SandHill Band of Lenape & Cherokee Indians of NJ. The following year he directed his first feature length documentary film, Diligence (2025) centering the work of Norris’ cousin, Tribal Historian/Registrar/Council Member Carrie Jones’ work to restore their family’s burial ground.

Brooklyn is happy and humble and continues to learn and grow thanks to the ongoing love, friendship, and welcome he recieves from Virginia Norfleet of the Haverstraw African American Connection, in addition to those already named here.

In 2022 Brooklyn visited over twenty public libraries in NY and NJ with elders of the Ramapough tribal community, using film to connect meaningfully with non tribal members. Through this incredible experience he grew close with his “Grandma Cindy” Cynthia Hoffman Fountain who carried medicine lines from her Penobscot father and Lenape mother, with generosity and force throughout her life. In 2023 she and her husband Jefferey gave Brooklyn the name TrueHeart, encouraging him to proceed without fear.

Brooklyn TrueHeart does his best to do so, with humility and effort, in and around the power of film in service of healing in the world.