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April 2005
 Sandra
Sunrising Osawa (Makah) has been a producer and independent
videomaker since 1970, beginning her work for television with
The Native American Series, a ground-breaking 10-part series
for KNBC-TV. She received a United Nations Fellowship to study
at NYU's Center for Media, History and Culture in 1996, the National
Video Resources' Media Arts Fellowship in 2002 and the Taos Mountain
Award for lifetime achievement at the 1996 Taos Talking Pictures
Festival. Osawa works with her husband, Yasu, and they have produced
two documentaries about treaty rights: Usual and Accustomed
Places, funded, in part, by the Ford Foundation, and Lighting
the Seventh Fire, which inaugurated Native American programming
on P.O.V., a showcase for non-fiction on public television. Osawa's
interest in contemporary Indian artists led her to explore their
work in On and Off the Res' w/ Charlie Hill and Pepper's
Pow Wow—and her current work-in-progress is Maria
Tallchief: America's First Prima Ballerina. Osawa has taught
script writing at Evergreen State College and video production
at Seattle Community College. She is a member of the Writer's
Guild of America and her poems are published in Dancing on
the Rim of the World, an anthology of Northwest Coast Native
poets. Before becoming a filmmaker, Osawa created and directed
the first Indian Head Start early childhood education program
in Washington State, while serving as the War on Poverty's Community
Action Director for the Makah Nation. Osawa heads Upstream Productions
and has also produced some 40 programs for various clients. She
received a BA from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon
and did graduate work at UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television
and the Universities of Washington and Oregon.
"I jumped into the film world early, at a time when no other
Indians were producing. I did so mainly because the images I saw
of Indian people in everyday life and the images I saw on the
screen were so vastly different. I also thought it was difficult
for us to achieve the political victories we sought in the 60's
and 70's because our image in the media was so poor. I thought
American Indians should be portrayed as contemporary figures with
a vibrant culture, full of humor and strength, and with our own
inspiring role models. By claiming and defining our own history,
I believe we can more easily build a better life in all other
areas. I think media has long been an overlooked part of our struggles
and true sovereignty cannot exist until we are truly able to tell
our own stories."
Screened by NMAI
Image credits: Sandra
Sunrising Osawa - courtesy
of the filmmaker
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