April 2006
 Director
Cedar Sherbert (Kumeyaay)
is currently adapting the short story "The Life and Times
of Estelle Walks Above" by Sherman Alexie into a feature-length
screenplay. His latest short film, Gesture Down (I Don't Sing),
an adaptation of the poem "Gesture Down to Guatemala"
by the late Blackfeet/Gros Venture writer James Welch, premiered
at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. He has participated in IFP
Project Involve and the ABC Minority Talent Development initiative.
Sherbert coordinated the CineMedia Program at the 2006 Santa Barbara
International Film Festival and the Native Track Program at the
2005 San Diego Film Festival. In 2005, he curated "First
Seen: Portraits of the World's Peoples, 1840-1880" at the
Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Sherbert has taught film theory courses
at Kumeyaay Community College. He has led youth video workshops
through the Heart of Los Angeles Live Arts Group and the Owens
Valley Career Development Center. Sherbert received an MFA in
film production at the University of Southern California. His
thesis film Memory premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film
Festival and won several awards including Best Short Drama at
the 2004 imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. He premiered
the short film Admirational at the Sundance Film Festival
in 2003. Sherbert won the 2002 Horizon Award for the best up and
coming filmmaker at the American Indian Film Festival. He lives
in Los Angeles, California.
"I am interested in using film not only as a means of self-expression,
but as a vehicle to address what I feel to be some of the concerns
and issues facing contemporary American Indians. I wish to continue
producing narrative works that not only speak to Native and non-Native
viewers from within the culture, but that challenge long held
stereotypes concerning Indian life while helping to expand the
vocabulary of Native American cinema."
Screened by NMAI
Image credit: Cedar Sherbert
- courtesy of the filmmaker
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