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August 2005
 Simon
James (Kwakwaka’wakw) is the producer, co-director
and co-writer of Raven Tales, winner of the Milagro Award
for Best Native Film at the 2004 Santa Fe Film Festival, Best
Animated Short Subject at the 2004 American Indian Film Festival
in San Francisco, and Best Animated Film at the 2005 Reel 2 Real
International Film Festival for Youth in Vancouver. Funded with
a 2004 seed grant from All Roads Film Project, Raven Tales
has aired on Access TV in Canada and on Maori TV in New Zealand,
and is also licensed for broadcast as a television series in Japan,
France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. After winning the Santa
Fe Film Festival award, James and Raven Tales co-director
Chris Keintz donated $10,000 to Albuquerque's Media Rights Foundation
in order to establish the New Mexico Film Production Grant. James
has been carving wooden figures with the guidance of master carvers
since age 15, when he carved a Thunderbird mask for a traditional
dance in which he was participating. The animations in Raven
Tales are based on James' carvings. His totem poles have been
commissioned for public display in Japan, and he traveled as a
storyteller and dancer with the 1998 Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition
"Down from the Shimmering Sky: Masks of the Northwest Coast."
James in the grandson of James Sewid, the first elected chief
of the Kwakiutl Reserve in Alert Bay, British Columbia, who won
the Order of Canada for his work on behalf of the Native Brotherhood
of British Columbia. James was born in Alert Bay and raised in
Campbell River, British Columbia.
"It is our hope that Raven Tales will educate the
future generation that Native peoples' culture is still alive
and thriving. We see no stop of its growth in the near future."
Screened by NMAI
Image credits: Simon
James - courtesy of the filmmaker
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