January 2005

Gregory Coyes (Métis Cree) directs documentaries and produced the children's series Stories from the Seventh Fire. Stories from the Seventh Fire won numerous awards, including Best Animation at both the 1999 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco and the 1999 Canadian Association of Broadcasters CanPro Awards. In 2002 his documentary How the Fiddle Flows won the River Is Life Award at the River Festival in Barcelona, Spain. As an audio-visual consultant, Coyes contributed to the design of the Aboriginal Peoples Gallery of the Provincial Museum of Alberta and has worked as a consultant for the National Museum of the American Indian. In 1992 Coyes was one of the founders of Dreamspeakers Film Festival, which presents indigenous films in Edmonton, Alberta. Coyes received a bachelor's degree from Yale University.

Coyes on Stories from the Seventh Fire: "I didn't grow up with these stories as a child but gained knowledge as a young man, and as a young father I recognized the really exceptional value of them to kids. I recognized they should be presented in a form that would make them accessible to a large family audience."

Screened by NMAI

• Medicine Walker (2004) director
• How the Fiddle Flows (2002) director, writer
• Tales of Wesakechak: How Wesakechak Got His Name (2002) co-producer, co-director
• Tales of Wesakechak: Wesakechak and the First Spring Flood (2002) co-producer, co-director
• Tales of Wesakechak: Wesakechak and the Medicine (2002) director
• Stories from the Seventh Fire: Legend of the Caribou (2002) co-producer, co-director
  
• Stories from the Seventh Fire (1998-2002) co-producer, director, writer

Image credit: Gregory Coyes - courtesy of the filmmaker