Miss Navajo
(2006, 60 min.) US
Director: William Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo)

No ordinary beauty pageant, the Miss Navajo Nation competition requires contestants to answer tough historical questions in the Navajo language and showcase traditional knowledge. The filmmaker, whose mother was crowned Miss Navajo in 1966, goes along on one contender's journey and interviews winners from the past five decades. The event's sacred dimension also emerges—young women are joining a matriarchal continuum that goes back to creation and the first Diné life-giving ancestor, Changing Woman.

Image credit: Miss Navajo - Idris Rheubottom; Miss Navajo - Idris Rheubottom