Producer and director Willi White was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to parents Tracy Swift Bird (Oglala Lakota) and Willie White I (Sr.) (Oglala Lakota). He is the eldest son and is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, a Lakota tribe of the Oceti Sakowin in the Great Plains region. He stepped on set for the first time as a production assistant for Winter in the Blood (2013) through a program with Longhouse Media. In 2016, he was awarded a fellowship with Sundance Institute's Native and Indigenous program.