All Roads Film Festival
In 2007 the National Geographic All Roads Film Festival took
place September 27 - 30 in Los Angeles, October 4 - October 7
in Washington, DC, and November 28 - December 3 as part of the
Santa Fe Film Festival. The films shown are about indigenous and
minority communities around the globe. The number of films shown
at the three sites varied, with an expanded program in Santa Fe
including "Nihí Dinék'egho Neidá: We
Walk as Diné" (a program of nine Navajo films curated
independently by Charmaine Jackson-John) and a retrospective of
works by Alanis Obomsawin.
Native American and indigenous directed features included:
International features and long documentaries included:
- Sonam
The Fortunate One (director: Ahsan Muzid)
- Super Amigos (director: Arturo Perez Torres)
- Dol (director: Hiner Saleem)
- Bolinao 52 (director: Duc Nguyen)
- Enemies of Happiness (director: Eva Mulvad)
Short works by indigenous directors included:
- Crocodile Dreaming (director: Darlene Johnson)
- Tavake (director: Paul Stoll)
- Taua (director: Tearepa Kahi)
- Land and Airwaves (directors: Patrick Boivin and Alland
Flamand. Produced by Wapikoni Mobile)
- 133 Skyway (director: Randy
Redroad)
- Nana (director: Warwick
Thornton)
- Gene Boy Came Back Home (director: Alanis
Obomsawin)
The special program "Nihí Dinék'egho Neidá:
We Walk as Diné" included works by Navajo directors
Klee Benally, Ramona
Emerson, Sydney Freeland, Mike Goodman, Melissa A. Henry,
Bennie Klain, Darwyn Roanhorse
and Sunrise Tippeconnie.
Other events included an art market in Washington, DC; music
performances by Balkan Beat Box; panel discussions with the All
Roads Photography Fellows. Three All Roads films and filmmakers
won awards at the Santa Fe Film Festival. The All Roads Film Project
website includes not only Festival programs but new features including
a blog space with news and video blogs from the festival events.
For more information go to www.nationalgeographic.com/allroads.
12/27/07

In 2006 the National Geographic All Roads Film Festival
took place September 28 - October 1 in Los Angeles and October
5 - October 8 in Washington, DC. Thirty films were shown, about
indigenous and minority cultures around the globe. The following
films by Native American directors were screened:
Works by indigenous Pacific directors:
- 5 Seasons (director: Steven McGregor)
- The Lore of Love (director: Beck Cole)
- Petroglyphs of Rapa Nui (directors: Santi Hitorangi
and Susan Hito-Shapiro)
- Plastic Leis (director: Tyrone Sanga)
Also included was The Hardest of these is Love by Sami
director Suvi West. Other films produced in Native communities
included: Arctic Son (director: Andrew Walton), Mi Papai
(My Grandmother) (director: Sandra Hoffman), Un Poquito
De (director: Dominique Jonard)
and Tainá-Kan, The
Big Star (director: Adriana
Figueiredo).
3/26/07

The All Roads Film Festival was held September 22 - 25,
2005 in Los Angeles and September 29 - October 1, 2005 in Washington,
D.C. The festival is presented by the All Roads Film Project of
the National Geographic Society. Indigenous works from North America
included: 5th World
(director: Blackhorse Lowe),
Goodnight Irene
(director: Sterlin Harjo), Steve
Ma'i'i (director: Kaliko Palmeira), Suckerfish (director:
Lisa Jackson), and Teachings of the Tree People (director:
Katie Jennings).
For contact information enter
here.
2/2/06

American Indian Film Festival
The 32nd annual American Indian Film Festival was presented
November 7 - 15, 2007, in San Francisco, showcasing more than
90 films produced in American Indian and Canada First Nations
communities. The awards given were:
- Best Film: Imprint
(director: Michael Linn)
- Best Director: Sterlin
Harjo for Four
Sheets to the Wind
- Best Actor: Cody Lightning in Four
Sheets to the Wind
- Best Actress: Tonantzin Carmelo in Imprint
- Best Supporting Actor: Ernie Tsosie in Milepost
398
- Best Supporting Actress: Carla-Rae Holland in Imprint
- Best Documentary Feature: Our Land, Our Life
(directors: George Gage and Beth Gage)
- Best Documentary Short: Dreammakers (director:
Susan Cardinal)
- Best Live Action Short: Seeking Bimaadiziiwin
(directors: Dave Clement and Kelly Saxberg)
- Best Animated Short: Raccoon
and Crawfish (director: Dale Rood)
- Best Music Video: What Are We Fighting For?
(Joanne Shenandoah) (directors: Eric Benda, Pearly Leung, Joanne
Shenandoah)
- Best Public Service: A Place Between: The Story of an
Adoption (director: Curtis Kaltenbaugh)
- Best Industrial: Seminole Tribe of Florida - 50th Anniversary
(director: Danny Jumper)
For the complete program and descriptions go to www.aifisf.com.
2/18/08

The American Indian Film Festival took place November
3 - November 11, 2006. The festival award recipients were:
- Best Film: Expiration Date (director: Rick Stevenson)
- Best Director: Zacharias Kunuk
and Norman Cohn for The
Journals of Knud Rasmussen
- Best Actor: Robert Guthrie for Expiration Date
- Best Actress: Andrea Menard for The Velvet Devil (director:
Larry Bauman)
- Best Supporting Actor: Eric Schweig for One Dead Indian
(director: Tim Southam)
- Best Supporting Actress: Renae Morriseau for The Velvet
Devil
- Best Documentary Feature: The Trail of Tears: A Cherokee
Legacy (director: Chip Richie)
- Best Documentary Short: Starblanket: A Spirit Journey
(director: Cindy Pickard and Andy Pickard)
- Best Live Short: Kinnaq
Nigaqtuqtuaq/The Snaring Madman (director: Andrew
Maclean)
- Best Music Video: The Greatest Love Song (director:
Yellow Thunder Woman and Robin Davey)
- Best Animation: By
the Rapids (director: Joseph
Lazare)
- Best Public Service: Gang Aftermath (director: Francis
Campbell)
- Best Industrial: Amerind: Our History (director: Patrick
Murphy)
3/26/07

The 30th American Indian Film Festival, held November
5 - 12, 2005, in San Francisco, California, announces the award
winners:
- Best Feature Film: Johnny Tootall. Director:
Shirley Cheechoo
- Best Director: Aaron James Sorensen for Hank Williams
First Nation
- Best Actor: Adam Beach
for Johnny Tootall
- Best Actress: Stacey Da Silva for Hank Williams
First Nation
- Best Supporting Actor: Nathaniel Arcand for Johnny
Tootall
- Best Documentary Feature: Trudell.
Director: Heather Rae
- Best Documentary Short: The Salt Song Trail.
Director: Esther Figueroa
- Best Live Short: A
Thousand Roads. Director: Chris
Eyre
- Best Public Service: The Gift of Diabetes.
Director: Brion Whitford
- Best Music Video: Tamara
Podemski for Meegwetch
For more information, enter
here.
12/30/05

The 29th American Indian Film Festival, held November
6 - 13, 2004 in San Francisco, announces its 2004 award winners:
- Best Film: Edge
of America. Director: Chris
Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho)
- Best Director: Chris Eyre
for Edge of America
- Best Actor: George Leach (Lillooet) in Distant Drumming
- A North of 60 Mystery
- Best Actress: Tina Keeper (Cree) in Distant Drumming
- A North of 60 Mystery
- Best Supporting Actor: Gordon Tootoosis (Cree/Stoney)
in On the Corner
- Best Supporting Actress: Irene Bedard (Inupiat/Cree)
in Edge of America
- Best Documentary Feature: The
Ghost Riders. Director: Vincent
Blackhawk Aamodt (Blackfoot/Lakota/Mexican)
- Best Documentary Short: A Tribe of One. Director:
Eunhee Cha
- Best Live Short: Memory.
Director: Cedar Sherbert
(Kumeyaay)
- Best Animated Short Subject: Raven Tales. Directors:
Chris Keintz (Cherokee) and Simon James (Kwakwakawakw)
- Best Public Service: G. Directors: Shonie de
la Rosa (Navajo) and Larry Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo)
- Best Music Video: Love Fades Away - Chester Knight.
Director: Robert DeLeskie
- Best Industrial: Plum Creek Reservoir. Director:
Steve Marks
11/29/04

The 28th American Indian Film Festival, held November
6 - 13 in San
Francisco, announces its 2003 award winners:
For contact information enter
here.
2/15/04

The 27th American Indian Film Festival, held
November 7 - 14 in San Francisco, announces its 2002 award winners:
- Best Film: Fast
Runner (Atanarjuat)
- Best Director: Zacharias
Kunuk
- Best Actor: Natar Ungalaaq, in Fast
Runner (Atanarjuat)
- Best Actress: Lucy Tulugarjuk, in Fast
Runner (Atanarjuat)
- Best Supporting Actor: Saginaw Grant, Skinwalkers
- Best Supporting Actress: Sheila Tousey, Skinwalkers
- Best Documentary Short Film: Century of Genocide
in the Americas. Director: Rosemary Gibbons
- Best Documentary Feature: Ojibemowin: Ojibwe Oral
Tradition. Director: Lorraine Norrgard
- Best Live Short: Only
the Devil Speaks Cree - (Canada). Director: Pamela Matthews
- Best Public Service Announcement: Restoring the
Sacred Circle: Responding to Elder Abuse in American Indian
Communities. Director: Phil Lucas
- Best Music Video: George Leach Young Enough
- Best Animated Short: Keeping Balance. Director:
Scott Clark
- Eagle Spirit Award: Joy
Harjo
- Horizon Award: Shane Hannigan, Admirational
- Producer's Award: Noreen Norrgard
11/20/02

2001 American Indian Film Festival, held November 8 -
14 in San Francisco, announces its awards:
Best Film: The Doe
Boy (Director: Randy
Redroad)
Best Director: Randy
Redroad (Cherokee)
Best Actor: James Duval (in The
Doe Boy)
Best Actress: Jeri Arredondo (in The
Doe Boy)
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Vlahos (in Christmas
in the Clouds)
Best Supporting Actress: Jade Herrera (in The
Doe Boy)
Best Documentary: Lady Warriors (Director: John
Goheen)
Best Documentary Short: Bernie Whitebear: Modern Warrior
(Director: Kurt Feldhun)
12/10/01

Cine Las Americas
Cine Las Americas International Film Festival
Festival: April 21 - 28, 2011
Austin, Texas
www.cinelasamericas.org/film-festival
7/5/11

The 10th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival,
held in Austin, Texas, April 19 - 26, 2007 screened more than
65 films. The festival showcases contemporary films from throughout
the Americas, by or about Latino and indigenous peoples, and features
a youth filmmaker program Emergencia.
Native-directed short films, documentary features, and new theatrical
releases included:
Other feature narrative and documentary films with indigenous
themes included:
- Tierra Roja (director: Ramiro Gómez)
Paraguay
- Cocalero
(director: Alejandro Landes)
Argentina, Bolivia, USA
- En el Hoyo (director: Juan Carlos Rulfo) Mexico
- ?Quién Mató a la Llamita Blanca?
(director: Rodrigo Bellott) Bolivia
- Hartos Evos Aqui Hay: Los Cocoleros del Chapare
(director: Hector Ulloque Franco, Manuel Ruiz Montealegre, Fernando
Lopez Escriva) Colombia
- ?Qué Pasa Después de la Coca?
(director: Roberto Lanza) Bolivia
- The Beloved Community (director: Pamela Calvert)
USA, Canada
The winner of the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature
was Tierra Roja, which follows the stories of four Guaraní
families in Paraguay. Among the festival jurors were director
Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo) and
Sundance Institute's N. Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne).
For more information, go to www.cinelasamericas.org.
7/17/07

The 9th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival was
held in Austin, Texas, April 19 - 23, 2006. The festival showcases
contemporary films from North, Central, and South America, as
well as the Caribbean and works by or about Latinos and indigenous
peoples.
Native-directed Short Films were:
The Panorama section included many films on Native life
by both indigenous and non-indigenous directors:
- Homeland: Four Portraits
of Native Action (director: Roberta
Grossman)
- La Vida de las mujeres en resistencia/We are Equal: Zapatista
Women Speak (producer: Promedios de Comunicacion Comunitaria)
- Miranda hacia dentro/The Militarization of Guerrrero
(producer: Promedios de Comunicación Comunitaria)
- Muxes: Authentic, Fearless Seekers of Danger (director:
Alejandra Islas)
- Sierra Madre Tierra/Mother Earth (director: Carlos
E. Rincon)
Emergencía, a program of films by youth no older
than 19, and selected by a youth jury, included Asveq-The Walrus
Hunt and Survival in the Weave-Kumeyaaya.
Other films on Native topics were the documentary features Trespassing
(director: Carlos DeMenezes)
and Apaga y Vamonos/Switch Off and Go (director: Manel
Mayol) and the dramatic short El Dia de los Muertes (director:
Jim Keeshan). In addition to these works, the festival this year
selected a number of outstanding works on border-crossing issues,
representing the experiences of indigenous and non-indigenous
emigrants from Central America and Mexico.
For more information enter
here.
8/11/06

The 8th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival was
held in Austin, Texas, April 20 - 24, 2005. The festival showcases
contemporary films from North, Central, and South America, as
well as the Caribbean and works by or about Latinos and indigenous
peoples.
Native-directed films selected were Shadow in Deep Water (director:
Shirley Cheechoo), 5th
World (director: Larry Blackhorse
Lowe), Goodnight
Irene (director: Sterlin
Harjo), Suckerfish (director: Lisa Jackson), Kunuk
Family Reunion (director: Zacharias
Kunuk), and El Panteonero/The Gravedigger (directors:
Juan Infante and Romina Cruz/Peru). Other documentaries on Native
culture included Uxüf Xipai: El Despojo/The Spoils,
Danzante, and Buscando a Don Juan.
This year's festival honored Mexican director Nicolás
Echevarría, screening his award-winning films from 1979-1991
concerned with Native community and outlook. The classic feature
Cabeza de Vaca (1991) tells of a 16th-century conquistador's
encounter with a Native tribe and its outcome. Also shown were
his documentaries on Native healers, spiritual practices, and
arts: Maria Sabina, mujer espiritu (1979); Teshuinada,
semana santa Tarahumara (1980); Poetas Campesinos (1980);
and Nino Fidencio: el taumaturgo de Espinoza (1981).
7/15/05

The 7th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival
was held in Austin, Texas, April 21 - 25, 2004. The festival showcases
contemporary films by and about Latinos and indigenous peoples
from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. The
Best Narrative Feature Award was given to Cowboys
and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story, starring Adam
Beach and Eric Schweig (director: Norma Bailey. producers:
Eric Jordan and Jeremy Torrie
(Ojibwe)). Other Native-directed or produced fictions were Blood
River (director: Kent
Monkman), Composure
(director: Tazbah Chavez),
and Dont Call
Me Tonto (executive director/writer: Annie
Frazier Henry). Dreamkeeper
featured great storytelling and an outstanding cast of Native
actors. Documentaries shown on various Native issues included
La Pasion de Maria Elena, The Shamans Apprentice,
Boomtown, and Oaxacan
Hoops.
8/5/04

CineFestival en San Antonio
CineFestival en San Antonio is produced by the Guadalupe
Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Texas. The 2005 festival,
held November 11 - 19. The festival featured works with indigenous
themes from the United States, Mexico and Argentina, including
A Thousand Roads
(director: Chris Eyre), Danzante
(director: Sergio Bátiz), Oaxacan Hoops (director:
Olga Rodriguez), Race is the Place (directors: Rick Tejada-Flores
and Ray Telles), and Salinas Grandes (director: Milguel
Kohan).
For contact information enter
here.
2/2/06

The 27th annual CineFestival en San Antonio, was presented
March 3 - 6, 2004 by the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, one of
the nation's premier cultural centers for Chicano and Latino arts.
The theme of this year's festival was Many Roads, Un Destino:
Latino and Indigenous Perspectives on Immigration. Participating
in the professional workshops was Frank Blythe (Sioux/Cherokee),
director of Native American Public Telecommunications.
Awards for Native productions were:
- Premio Mesquite: Native American First Place
A Salto de Mata: Historias de Migrantes Indígenas.
Director: Javier Sámano Chong
- Premio Mesquite: Native American Education
The Iron Lodge. Director: Ismana Carney
Other works with indigenous themes:
- Balance. Director: Antonio Cisneros
- Red Road: Towards the Techno-Tribal Tribe. Director:
Juan Salazar
- Vis á Vis: Native Tongues.
Directors: Steve Lawrence and Phil Lucas (Choctaw)
- Juchitán Queer Paradise. Director: Patricio
Henriquez
For more information go to www.guadalupeculturalarts.org/mediaarts/cine2k4.htm.
5/19/04

Dreamspeakers Film Festival
Dreamspeakers Film Festival, held June 4-9, 2007, in Edmonton,
Alberta, presented documentaries and feature films from Canada,
New Zealand, and the United States; a two-day film trade and career
fair; and a Youth Day with screenings and workshops. On Opening
Night, a welcome reception was followed by a screening of The
Waimate Conspiracy and the festival closed with an Awards
Night. Awards given were:
Other works screened include the feature film Rain in the
Mountains, directed by Joel Metlen and Christine Sullivan.
Short works screened included Aydaygooay,
directed by Mary Code; Buffalo Spirit, directed by Marie
Burke; and Maq and
the Spirit of the Woods, directed by Phyllis Grant. Documentaries
included Flight from Darkness, directed by Trevor Grant;
The Spirit of Sacajawea, directed by Alyson Young; and
Waban-Aki, directed by Alanis
Obomsawin.
For more information go to www.dreamspeakers.org/2007/films.htm.
9/5/07

Dreamspeakers Film Festival, held June 7 - June 10, 2006,
in Edmonton, Alberta, presented documentaries and feature films
from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and US; a one-day film trade
and career fair; and a Youth Day with screenings and workshops
for 250 young people. The festival also honors key figures in
indigenous film in its Walk of Honour. Awards given were:
- Best Dramatic Feature: Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis
(director: Gil Cardinal)
- Best Documentary: The Kaipara Affair (director:
Barry Barclay)
- Best Documentary Short: Our Community (director:
Sean Kennedy)
- Best Public Service Media: Gang Aftermath (director:
Francis Campbell)
The Opening Night gala featured Indian Summer and the
festival closed with a VIP Gala to raise funds for Edmonton's
Aboriginal Walk of Honour honoring First Nations media contributions.
This year's Walk of Hnour recipients are Bert Crowfoot, Barry
Barclay, Tantoo Cardinal,
Alanis Obomsawin, and Gil
Cardinal.
Other works screened include the feature films Disappearances,
Johnny Tootall
and A Thousand Roads.
Short works screened include The Salt Song Trail and humorous
shorts Dude vs. Dude and Pigeon Powwow. Documentaries
included Aboriginal
Architecture, Living Architecture; The
Ghost Riders; My Father, My Teacher; Homeland:
Four Stories of Native Action; and Trespassing.
For more information go to www.dreamspeakers.org.
8/11/06

On June 22 - 25, 2005, the 10th annual Dreamspeakers Film
Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, presented nearly 40 indigenous
works and a retrospective of works by director and actor Shirley
Cheechoo, Bearwalker,
Silent Tears,
and Shadow in Deep Water. The Opening Night gala screened
Goodnight Irene
(director: Sterlin Harjo) and
Heavy Metal (directors: Neil Diamond and Tracey Deer).
The Dreamspeakers Film Society organized a VIP Gala to raise funds
for Edmonton's Aboriginal Walk of Honour honoring First Nations
filmmaking contributions to Canada. This year's Walk of Honour
recipients are Wil Campbell, August Schellenberg, Jimmy Herman,
Willie Dunn, and Gordon Tootoosis.
Other actors and directors participating included Alex
Rice, Dakota House, Steve Reevis,
Nathaniel Arcand, Sonny Skyhawk, Catherine Anne Martin, and Annie
Frazier Henry. Among the works screened were Two
Cars One Night (director: Taika Waititi), Medicine
Walker (director: Greg Coyes),
One More River: The Deal that Split the Cree (directors:
Neil Diamond and Tracey Deer), The
Business of Fancydancing (director: Sherman
Alexie), Dhakiyarr vs. the King (directors: Tom Murray
and Allan Colllins), Dancing on the Edge (director: Alan
Tafoya) and Two Winters:
Tales from Above the Earth (director: Carol
Geddes).
For more information go to www.dreamspeakers.org.
7/15/05

On June 24 - 26, 2004 the Dreamspeakers Film Festival,
presented twenty outstanding recent indigenous works from Canada,
Brazil, Mexico and Australia. Held at the Provincial Museum of
Alberta in Edmonton, the festival opened on National Aboriginal
Day with a gala featuring Shirley Cheechoo's (Cree) documentary
Pikutiskwauu/Mother Earth
and a blessing by Raven Mackinaw (Cree). Drew Hayden Taylor (Ojibwe)
gave a humorous lecture/workshop entitled "Being a Successful
Native Writer is not an Oxymoron". Other documentaries screened
included If the Weather Permits,
Kinja Iakaha: A Day in
the Village, Diet of Souls, Found Voices,
White Buffalo Burgers, and The Spirit of Annie Mae.
Feature films screened were Cowboys
and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story, On
the Corner, and Dreamkeeper.
For the complete program go to www.dreamspeakers.org.
7/30/04

Welcome back
Dreamspeakers Film Festival, a long-enjoyed showcase of film,
video, arts, conferences and meeting ground for international
indigenous media, announces that its 8th festival is to be held
June 2004 in Edmonton, Alberta. The Festival has recently been
included as part of the Global Vision Film Festival, screening
8 films in 2003. This year brings back the first full-scale Dreamspeakers
Festival since 1998.
4/2/04

In 2003 the Global Visions Film Festival in Edmonton,
AlbertCanada's longest-running documentary film festivalfeatured
Gil Cardinal's Totem:
The Return of the G'psgolox Pole for the gala opening
night. This year the festival, held November 5 - 9, collaborated
with the Dreamspeakers Society to present eight aboriginal
films. A special panel discussion on Aboriginal film style moderated
by Murray Jurak (Lower Nicola Band), Board chairman of Dreamspeakers,
included filmmakers Gil Cardinal (Métis), Sonny Skyhawk
(Lakota), and Loretta Todd (Métis/Cree).
Additional Dreamspeakers documentaries screened were:
- Angakkuiit: Shaman Stories. Canada. Director: Zacharias
Kunuk (Inuit)
- Imprints of Our Ancestors: Diich'anjoo Gookai' Deek'it.
Canada. Directors: Mary Jane Moses (Gwitchin) and Tracy Kassi
(Gwitchin)
- Locked Horns: the Fate of Old Crow. Canada. Director:
Andrew Gregg
- Lonely Boy Richard. 55 min. Australia. Director: Trevor
Graham
- Media Nomads: The Thaiday Brothers. Australia. Director:
Donna Ives (North Queensland Aboriginal)
- The People Go On.
Canada. Director: Loretta Todd (Métis/Cree)
- The World of American Indian Dance. US. Director: Sonny
Skyhawk (Lakota)
For more information on Global Visions Film Festival and programs
go to www.globalvisionsfestival.com.
For information about the Dreamspeakers Film Festival, which returns
to Edmonton in 2004, go to www.dreamspeakers.org.
4/8/04

Encuentro Hispanoamericano de Video Documental
Independiente:
Contra el Silencio Todas las Voces
(All Voices Against Silence Independent Documentary Festival)
On March 15 - 25, 2006, the Encuentro Hispanoamericano de
Video Documental Independiente: Contra El Silencio Todas las Voces
documentary festival was held in Mexico. The programs included
"Visions and Voices of Indigenous America," a documentary
showcase coordinated by CLACPI/Consejo Latinoamericano de Cine
y Comunicación de los Pueblos Indígenas.
The indigenous showcase, presented March 15 - 18 in Mexico City
at the Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, screened:
- Los Angeles
de la Tierra (director: Patricio
Luna, Bolivia)
- Aquí Así Nos Curamos (director: José
Luís Matías Alonso, Mexico)
- Ayllus en Paz (directors: Humbero Claros and Ariel
Yañez, Bolivia)
- Buscando el Azul (director: Fernando Valdivia Gómez,
Peru)
- Cuando la Justicia
se hace Pueblo (director: Carlos
Efraín Pérez Rojas, Mexico)
- De los Niños Ikpeng para el Mundo (directors:
Kumaré Txicao,
Karané Txicao,
and Natuyu Txicao, Brazil)
- Día 2 (director:
Dante Cerano Bautista, Mexico)
- Dulce Convivencia (director: Filoteo Gómez Martínez,
Mexico)
- Historias
Verdaderas (Ojo de Agua Comunicación, Mexico)
- El Misterio de la Palmera (director: Heladio Uraeza,
Bolivia)
- Moyngo, el Sueño de Maragareum (directors: Kumaré
Txicao and Natuyu Txicao,
Brazil)
- Una Muerte en Sión (director: Adam Goldstein,
United States/Peru)
- Río de la Vida (Esse Ejja directors, Bolivia)
- Susurros de Muerte (director: Reynaldo Yujra, Bolivia)
- Servir el Pueblo (director: Hermengildo Rojas Ramírez,
Mexico)
- Soy Defensor de la Selva (director: Heriberto Gualinga
Montalvo, Ecuador)
- Teco, el Niño Mojeño (director: Rubén
Machado Navía, Bolivia)
- La Tierra, Nuestra Esperanza (directors: Violeta Chávez
and Bertha Rodríguez, Mexico)
- Las Voces del Uarhi Iurixe (director: Raúl Máximo
Cortés, Mexico)
For more information, go to www.contraelsilencio.org.
4/10/06

The third biennial Encuentro Hisapanoamericano de Video Documental
Independiente: Contra el Silencio Todas las Voces (Spanish-American
Gathering of Independent Documentary Video: All Voices Against
Silence), was held April 23 - 30, 2004 in Mexico City.
The Festival gives juried awards in several categories. Jurors
for the Indigenous Awards competition were videomaker Crisanto
Manzano (Zapotec), cultural activist Marcos Sandoval (Triqui)
and Iván Sanjinés of Bolivias CEFREC media
organization.
- Indigenous category shared prize:
Üxüf Xipay, el Despojo/The Spoils. Director:
Dauno Tótoro Taulis
Son de la Tierra/Song
of the Earth. Director: Jorge (Tzotzil)
- Indigenous category honorable mentions:
Crónica de un Baile de Muñeco/Chronicle of
a Dolls Dance. Director: Pablo Mora Calderón
Sembrando Futuro/Sowing the Future. Director: Roberto
Olivares Ruiz
Cariñoso Maestro/Loving Teacher. Director: Maja
Tillmann Salas
- Human Rights category shared prize:
La Generación Desaparecida/The Disappeared Generation.
Director: Jan Thielen
Cuando la Justicia
se Hace Pueblo/Reclaiming Justice: Guerreros Indigenous
Police. Director: Carlos Efraín Pérez
(Mixe)
- Human Rights category honorable mentions:
Choropampa: el Precio del Oro/Choropampa: the Price of Gold.
Directors: Ernesto Cabellos and Stephanie Boyd
Trelew. Director: Mariana Arruti
For more information go to www.contraelsilencio.org.
5/10/04

Environmental Film Festival at Eckerd College
(created from Native Visions, Native Voices Film Festival)
The 8th annual Environmental Film Festival at Eckerd College:
Visions of Nature/Voices of Nature was presented February
23 - March 4, 2006, in St. Petersburg, Florida. One of the six
film programs was "American Indians and the Environment,"
presented by Reaghan Tarbell of the NMAI's Film + Video Center.
The works screened were A
Thousand Roads (director: Chris
Eyre) and Homeland: Four
Portraits of Native Action (director: Roberta
Grossman).
4/5/06

The 7th annual Environmental Film Festival at
Eckerd College: Visions of Nature/Voices of Nature was presented
February 26 - March 5, 2005 in St. Petersburg, Florida. About
twelve films were screened, discussed by the directors and scholars,
including C.S.A.: the Confederate States of America, The
Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Yellow Earth, and
Edge of America,
presented by director/producer Chris
Eyre.
3/5/05

Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's
Capital
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital
Festival: March 15 - 27, 2011
Washington, DC
www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/
7/5/11

The 2007 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital,
March 15 - 25 in Washington, D.C. screened nearly 115 works at
46 different venues, with more than 20,000 people attending. The
festival featured environmentally-themed productions from twenty-seven
countries. Biologist E.O. Wilson, filmmaker George Butler, genome
pioneer Craig Venter and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman
were among the 136 filmmakers, scientists and special guests who
discussed their work at the Festival.
The National Museum of the American Indian presented Waterbuster,
a film written, directed, produced, and edited by J.
Carlos Peinado (Mandan/Hidatsa). The film investigates the
impact of the massive Garrison Dam project, constructed on the
Upper Missouri River in North Dakota in the 1950s, which laid
waste a self-sufficient American Indian community, submerging
156,000 acres of fertile land, and ultimately displacing the filmmaker's
own family and other people of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.
Other programs with indigenous themes included two films by Chris
Palmer. Save Rainforests, Save Lives features children
in the rainforest of Ecuador, a leukemia patient at the Children's
Hospital in Washington D.C. and others who owe their good health
to the medicinal bounty of the rainforest. Protecting Life
in the Rainforest tells the story of indigenous people
and concerned friends from around the world and their efforts
to preserve the treasures of the Napo River rainforest. Pachamama
by Michael Schoenfeld highlights the efforts of a non-profit helping
Ecuadorians protect their native lands. Ten Canoes,
by Australian director Rolf de Heer, with an all-Aboriginal cast
film, is a rumination on a community and oral tradition. Wellspring,
directed by John Grabowska, is a film-in-the-making exploring
the relationship of the Pueblo people to their ancestral lands
and the placement of the atomic laboratory city of Los Alamos
there.
For more information: www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org/2007FestivalReport.htm
7/17/07

The 2006 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital,
March 15 - 26 in Washington, D.C. screened nearly 100 works at
more than 70 different events, with more than 20,000 people attending.
The festival featured environmentally-themed productions from
twenty-three countries. The National Museum of the American Indian
presented At the Time
of the Sturgeon (Ekospi Namew) followed by discussion
with filmmaker Dennis Jackson
(Cree) and editor Melanie Jackson
(Metis/Saulteaux). This work is concerned with the fragile ecosystem
of the Churchill River in Cree country in northern Saskatchewan.
It was preceded by the animation Two
Winters: Tales from Above the Earth (director: Carol
Geddes (Tlingit). Other programs with indigenous themes included
Banking on Disaster (director: Adrian Cowell), a documentary
about the impact of the World Bank's support of highway construction
in the Brazilian Amazon on both indigenous people and the impoverished
Brazilians attracted to settle there. The screening, presented
by American University's Center for Social Media and Center for
Environmental Filmmaking, was followed by a panel discussion,
"Can a Movie Save the Rainforest?" The National Museum
of Natural History honored Bolivian director Jorge Ruiz and screened
his 1953 fiction Vuelve Sebastiana, filmed with local actors
in a remote Chipaya village in Bolivia.
For more information enter here.
8/11/06

The 2005 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital,
March 10 - 20 in Washington, D.C. screened approximately 130 works
at more than thirty different venues. The festival featured environmentally-themed
productions from thirty countries. On March 11 - 12, the National
Museum of the American Indian presented two programs by indigenous
directors. Okimah (director:
Paul Rickard) focuses on the
traditions and continuation of the Cree hunting way of life in
his portrait of his father, an okimah, or traditional hunt master.
The program was preceded by an animated Tales
of Wesakechak: The First Spring Flood (directors: Gregory
Coyes and George Johnson). Issues of water facing Native communities-hydroelectric
projects and Native resistance in Mexico and Chile, obtaining
adequate drinking water, and the protection of aquifers in desert
lands-were featured in a program of short works: Punalka:
The Upper Biobio (director: Jeannette
Paillan), Esta Tierra Es Nuestra/This
Land Is Ours (director: Guillermo
Monteforte), La
Lucha del Agua/Water and Autonomy (director: Israel for
Chiapas Media Project), and Paatuwaqatsi:
Water, Land and Life, introduced by director Victor Masayesva,
Jr.
For more information enter here.
9/2/05

The 2004 Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's
Capital, March 18 - 28 in Washington, D.C., screened approximately
150 works at more than thirty different venues. International
in scope, the festival featured environmentally-themed productions
from thirty countries. On March 25-26, NMAI presented the Washington
premieres of Totem: The Return
of the G'psgolox Pole, introduced by director Gil
Cardinal and NMAI repatriation specialist John Beaver, and
Voices of the Sierra Tarahumara,
introduced by director Robert Brewster and Environmental Defense
attorney Bruce Rich.
For more information enter here.
4/1/04

Festival Internacional de Cine y Video de los
Pueblos Indígenas (International Film and Video Festival
of Indigenous Peoples)
The 7th Indigenous Film and Video Festival
of the Americas was held June 18 - 24, 2004 in Santiago, Chile,
featuring more than 100 productions. This year's events were coordinated
by videomaker Jeanette Paillán (Mapuche) and local indigenous
communications groups such as Lulul Mawida. Created in 1985 by
the Latin American Council of Indigenous Peoples' Film and Communication
(CLACPI- Consejo Latinoamericano de Cine y Comunicación
de los Pueblos Indígenas), the festival supports the training,
production and screening of indigenous video and film in Latin
America. The festival is organized every two-three years and hosted
on a rotating basis in different Latin American countries by local
indigenous media makers and organizations. Works from Native communities
and independent media makers throughout the Americas are invited
to compete. The 2004 Festival jurors, from Chile, Cuba and Basque
country in Spain, were Ramón Ibáñez Quispe
(Aymara), Mario Tuki (Rapa Nui), Luis Alfaro Cutipa (Lickanantay),
Lorena Lemuñir (Mapuche), Maria Julia Grillo, Juan Carlos
Vásquez Velasco (Basque), Cecilia González, and
Amalia Cordova.
Awards were given in the following categories:
- Preservation of Cultural Identity: Wichi. Director:
Mariano Rubino, Documenta SRL
- Defense of Indigenous People's Rights: La Tierra,
Nuestra Esperanza, La Resistencia al Plan Puebla - Panamá
(The Land, Our Hope, Resistance to the Plan Puebla-Panama).
Directors: Violeta Chávez (Isthmus Zapotec) and Bertha
Rodríguez (Chatina) for UCIZONI and GTCI
- Social-Organizational Process of Indigenous Peoples:
La Lucha del Agua (The Water Struggle). Director: Israel,
Promedios; Kikillan Tae Kancheq/Ayllus en Paz (Peace in the
Ayllus). Directors: Humberto Claros (Quechua) and Ariel
Yáñez (Aymara), CEFREC-CAIB
- Artistic Creation: El Día 2 (Day 2).
Director: Dante Cerano (P'urhepecha),
Exe Video
- Best Fiction with Indigenous Participation: Los
Angeles de la Tierra/Angels of the Earth. Director:
Patricio Luna (Aymara), CEFREC-CAIB.
- Testimonial and Documentary Value: Marangmotxíngmo
Mïrang: From the Ikpeng Children to the World.
Directors: Kumaré
Txicao (Ikpeng), Karané
Txicao (Ikpeng), and Natuyu
Yuwipo Txicao (Ikpeng), Video nas Aldeias; La Hoja Sagrada/The
Sacred Leaf. Director: Marta Rodriguez, Cine Documental; Üxüf
Xipay/El Despojo (The Spoils). Director: Dauno Tótoro,
Ceibo Producciones.
- Best Mise-en-Scene: Qom 'Leec/La Gente (The People).
Director: Leo Rodríguez
- Lifetime Achievement: To the producer/director Jeannette
Paillan (Mapuche), director of Wallmapu
Honorable Mentions:
- Denouncing ecological disasters and their impact on indigenous
communities: Una Muerte en Sion/A Death in Zion.
Director: Adam Goldstein for Racimos de Ungurahui and the Achuar
Federations of the Corrientes River.
- Women's struggles: Xulum'chon:
Weavers in Resistance from the Highlands. Director:
José Luis (Tzotzil), Promedios.
- Emergent themes-genetic engineering: Raweke Ira,
Genetic Manipulation. Director: Robert Pouwhare (Maori);
Squ' inal lxim - Fiesta del Maíz El Tercer Encuentro
de Maíx Maya Zoque (Squ'inal lxim - Festival of Maize,
The Third Summit of Maize Maya Zoque). Directors: José
Angel Lopez Domínguez and Roberto Corzo León for
CIESAS - (CESMECA-UNICACH) and Regiones Autónomas Pluriétnicas.
- Urban Indians: Johnny Greyeyes. Director: Jorge
Manzano, Nepantla Films.
- Rescue of Indigenous Music: Son
de la Tierra/Song of the Earth. Director: Jorge (Tzotzil),
Promedios.
All translations in parenthesis are provided by the NMAI Film
+ Video Center and are for informational purposes only. For Amalia
Cordova's festival diary enter
here.
9/9/04

First Americans in the Arts Awards
First Americans in the Arts (FAITA) held its 15th annual
Awards Presentations with Wes Studi serving as Master of Ceremonies
and Host for the second year in a row. FAITA is a non-profit organization
created to recognize, honor and promote American Indian participation
in the entertainment industry. The annual awards event is the
principle fundraiser for scholarships awarded to students pursuing
careers in film, television, theater, and music.
- Outstanding Performance by an Actor: Rudy Youngblood
in Apocalypto
- Outstanding Performance by an Actress (Theatre):
Thirza Defoe in Stoneheart by playwright Diane Glancy
and Native Voices
- Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Film (Supporting):
Mizuo Peck in Night at the Museum
- Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Film (Supporting):
Morris Birdyellowhead in Apocalypto
- Outstanding Achievement in Traditional Music: Mary
Youngblood for Dancing With the Wind
- Outstanding Achievement in Writing: Rhiana Yazzie for
Navajo Nation
- Outstanding Achievement in Music (Contemporary): Arigon
Starr for her CD Red Road
- Outstanding Achievement (Technical): Tricia Wood for
Casting
- Humanitarian Award: Sundance InstituteBird Runningwater
accepting
- Will Sampson Memorial Award: Native Star Dance Team
of New Mexico
- Trustee Award: Icon Pictures, Mel Gibson for Apocalypto
- Legacy Award: Te Ata (Born Mary Thompson)Accepted
by Lt. Govenor Jefferson Keel of the Chickasaw Nation
- Miss Indian World: Violet John
7/17/07

First Americans in the Arts (FAITA) held
its 14th annual Awards Presentations on March 25, 2006, with Wes
Studi serving as Master of Ceremonies and Host. FAITA is a non-profit
organization created to recognize, honor and promote American
Indian participation in the entertainment industry. The annual
awards event is the principle fundraiser for scholarships awarded
to students pursuing careers in film, television, theater, and
music. The evening featured performances by Jana, winner of the
NAMMY's Female Artist of the Year, by FAITA's Outstanding Musical
Achievement winner Quese iMC, and by Arigon Starr. who presented
an excerpt from the play The Red Road.
- Best Director: Chris Eyre
for Edge of America
- Best Actor-TV Movie: Zahn McClarnon in Into the
West
- Best Actress-TV Movie: Tonantzin Carmelo in Into
the West
- Best Actress-TV Series: Kristin Cheneweth in The
West Wing
- Best Supporting Actor-Feature Film: August Schellenberg
in The New World
- Best Supporting Actress-Feature Film: Kristin Cheneweth
in Bewitched
- Best Supporting Actor-TV Movie: Tyler Christopher in
Into the West
- Best Supporting Actress-TV Movie: Delanna Studi in
Edge of America
- Best New Performance (Film or TV): Nakota La Rance
in Into the West
- Best Actress-Theater: Elena Finney in Kino and Theresa
- Best Musical Achievement: Quese iMC
- Lifetime Musical Achievement Award: Link Wray, guitar
pioneer and inventor of the powerchord
- Best Achievement in Stunts: Dutch Lunak, stunt coordinator
for Into the West
- Best Technical Arts: Stephanie Stonefish Ryan
- Humanitarian Award: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
and ABC Entertainment for the show's 2-hour season finale, "The
Piestewa Family"
- Legacy Award: Roy Track, popular powwow announcer
- Trustee Award: Q'orianka Kilcher
- Will Sampson Memorial Award: San Manuel Indians for
the Extreme Home Makeover Project
4/5/06

The 13th annual awards of First Americans in
the Arts were announced on March 15, 2005 in Los Angeles.
FAITA is a non-profit organization created to recognize, honor
and promote American Indian participation in the entertainment
industry. The annual awards event is the principal fund-raiser
for scholarships awarded to students pursuing careers in film,
television, theater, and music:
- Outstanding Lead Actor: Wes
Studi in PBS' A
Thief of Time
- Outstanding Lead Actress: Julia Jones in Black
Cloud
- Best Supporting Actor-Feature Film: Russell Means in
Black Cloud
- Best Director: Chris Eyre
for A Thief of Time
- Best Supporting Actress-Television: Alex
Rice in A Thief
of Time
- Best Supporting Actor-Television: Graham
Greene in A Thief
of Time
- Outstanding Performance in TV Series (Recurring): Karina
Lombard for her role as Marina in The L Word
- Outstanding Guest Performance in a TV Series: Steve
Reevis in ABC's Line of Fire
- Outstanding New Performance in Film or TV: Kelly Byars
in A Thief of Time
- Outstanding Lead Actress in Theater: Arigon Starr in
Please Do Not Touch the Indian at the Wells Fargo Theater,
Autry National Center
- Outstanding Lead Actor in Theater: Andrew Roa in Please
Do Not Touch the Indian
- Best Musical Achievement: Jimmy Lee Young for his new
album Maya
- Hall of Honor Award: Jim Thorpe, who has also been
selected posthumously as ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete
of the Century
- Humanitarian Award: The Recording Academy for creating
a Native American Category for the GRAMMY Awards
- Legacy Award: Clu Gulager, has appeared in a long list
of films, including Feast directed by his son, John Gulager.
Gulager is the cousin of Will Rogers.
- Lifetime Achievement in Stunts: Hall Needham (Blackfoot)
- Trustee Award: to independent Los Angeles filmmaker,
Ian Skorodin (Choctaw)
- Will Sampson Memorial Award: Owens Valley Career Development
Center/Akatubi Film & Music Academy. In 2002 with the help
of Native professionals in the entertainment industry, they
created a digital film and music academy for you. More than
240 young people have participated since its founding
3/17/05

The 12th annual awards of First Americans
in the Arts were announced on March 20, 2004 in Los Angeles:
- Outstanding Lead Performance in a Film - Actor: Eric
Schweig (Inuit) in The Missing - Revolution Studios/Imagine
Entertainment
- Outstanding Lead Performance in a TV Movie - Actor:
Nathaniel Arcand (Plains Cree) in The Lone Ranger - Turner
Television/Turner Films
- Outstanding Lead Performance in a TV Movie - Actress:
Stepfanie Kramer (Eastern Band Cherokee) in Hunter: Back
in Force - 20th Century Fox Television/NBC Studios
- Outstanding Supporting Performance in a TV Movie/Special
- Actor: Eddie Spears (Lakota Sioux) in Dreamkeeper
- ABC Television Network/Hallmark Entertainment
- Outstanding Supporting Performance in a TV Movie/Special
- Actress: Delanna Studi (Cherokee) in Dreamkeeper
- Outstanding Guest Performance in a TV Drama Series:
Graham Greene (Oneida) in Mister Sterling - NBC Studios/Universal
Network Television
- Outstanding Performance in TV Series (Recurring): Mitch
Longley (Passamoquoddy/Penobscot) in Las Vegas - Dream
Works/NBC Studios
- Outstanding New Performance in Film or TV: Teneil Whiskeyjack
(Saddle Lake First Nation) in Dreamkeeper
- Outstanding Achievement in Producing (Special Award):
Tiffany R. Delorme (Choctaw)
- Outstanding Achievement in Technical Arts: Monty Bass
(Sac and Fax/Creek)
- Outstanding Achievement in Stunts: Henry Kingi, Jr.
(Cherokee)
- Outstanding Lead Performance in Theater - Actress:
Arigon Starr (Kickapoo) in Buzz' Gem Blues - Native
Voices
- Outstanding Performance in Theater - Actor: Michael
Horse (Mescalero Apache/Yaqui/Zuni) in Buzz' Gem Blues
- Outstanding Musical Achievement - Independent: Darren
Geffre (Blackfoot) in "Uncivilized" - independent
- Outstanding Musical Achievement - Contemporary: Chester
Knight (Cree) in "Standing Strong" - SOAR Corporation
- Outstanding Musical Achievement - Traditional: Black
Lodge Singers (Blackfeet) in "Brotherhood" - Canyon
Records
- Humanitarian Award: John Fusco, screenwriter for Dreamkeeper,
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Thunderheart,
and Hidalgo. "His sensitivity to Indian people,
their history, their stories and their need to be told put him
into the running for this award. He has earned it beyond question."
- Humanitarian Award - Stunts: Norman Howell for his
work as stunt coordinator who trained 20 Native American men
as stunt men in Dances with Wolves, all of whom went on to become
professionals in the business. Howell continues to employ and
train Native American stuntmen.
- Trustee Award: Hallmark Entertainment, Robert Halmi
Sr., and Robert Halmi Jr. "The time and effort they
took to consult with each Nation represented in Dreamkeeper
to assure accuracy in every detail was extraordinary, their
dedication to casting every role with Native American actors
earned them this prestigious award."
- Trustee Award: ABC Television Network for Dreamkeeper
- Trustee Award: Tony Hillerman, novelist "for his
accurate and sympathetic portrayals of Indian life in his novels."
- Will Sampson Memorial Award: KTNN Radio, The Voice
of the Navajo Nation
6/7/04

First Nations Film and Video Festival of Chicago
The First Nations Film and Video Festival, produced by
Chicago's American Indian Center, was held November 14 - 19, 2005
in Chicago, Illinois. NMAI's A
Thousand Roads (director: Chris
Eyre) was screened on November 17 at the festival's special
reception at the American Indian Center. Other films screened
were 5th World (director:
Blackhorse Lowe), The Gift
of Diabetes (director: Brion Whitford), Playing at Happiness
(directors: Stephani Etheridge Woodson and youth filmmakers from
Gila River Indian Community), and Two Worlds Colliding
(director: Taisha Hubbard). Screening venues in Chicago and adjoining
suburbs included Trickster Gallery, North Park University, the
American Indian Center, Hull House, University of Chicago, and
Mitchell Indian Museum.
For contact information, enter
here.
2/2/06

The 8th First Nations Film and Video Festival
was held in Chicago on November 15 - 21, 2004. Sponsored by the
American Indian Center and Red Path Theater Company, the festival
presented 42 works by and about Native Americans, with screenings
at 10 venues in the Chicago area. Director Chris
Eyre (Cheyenee/Arapaho) gave a November 17 lecture "From
Dances with Wolves to Smoke Signals: Re-Inventing Indians
On Screen". Directors attending the November 19 reception
at the American Indian Center included Roderick Pocowachit (Pawnee/Shawnee/Comanche),
Frederick Lane (Lummi), and Ernest Whiteman III (Arapaho).
For more information, contact Dave Spencer of the American Indian
Center, at 773-275-5871.
11/15/04

First Nations of Abya Yala Film and Video Festival
The IV First Nations of Abya Yala Film and Video Festival
was held November 16 - 28, 2001 in Ecuador. After opening
in Quito, the Festival moved to indigenous communities throughout
the country for screenings from November 17 - 23. Screenings were
held in Quito November 24-28. The Festival then toured Spain as
the Muestra de Cine Indigena de Abya Yala/Indigenous Film from
Abya Yala.
The Festival's Lanza de Amaru juried awards carry the names of
the eleven indigenous nations in Ecuador.The prizes given were
created by Native artists and artisans.
- Shuar Prize: Best Fiction. Qati-Qati,
Susurro de Muerte/Murmurs of Death. Director: Reinaldo
Yujra, Bolivia
- Secoya Prize: Best Narration. Oro
Maldito/Cursed Gold. Director: Marcelino Pinto, Bolivia
- Tsa'chila Prize: Creativity. El Diablo Nunca Duerme/The
Devil Never Sleeps**. Director: Humberto Paz, Bolivia
- Kichwa Prize: Culture. Waia
Rini, O Poder do Sonho/Waia Rini, The Power of the Dream.
Director: Divino Tserewahu,
Brazil
- Siona Prize: History. La Palabra Desenterrada/The
Haunted Land. Director: Mary Ellen Davis, Canada
- Cofan Prize. Not Awarded
- Chachi Prize: Collective Rights. El Silencio de
los Zapatistas/The Silence of the Zapatistas. Directors:
Paco, Marvin, Saul and Solin, Mexico
- Achuar Prize: Education and Training. Educacion
en Resistencia/Education in Resistance. Directors: Moises
and Antonio, Mexico
- Epera Prize: Gender. Vamos Siendo Parejos/Let's
Be Equal. Director: Roberto Olivares, Mexico
- Zapara Prize: Environment. Defender los Bosques/To
Defend the Forest. Director: Carlos Efrain, Mexico
- Awa Prize: World View. Pewma, El conflicto en el
Sueno Mapuche/Conflict in Mapuche Dreaming. Director: Jaime
Garcia Henriquez, Chile
- Huaroni Prize: Migration. Familia Migrante/Migrant
Family. Director: Raul Maximo Cortes, Mexico
2/18/04

First Peoples' Festival Film & Video Showcase/Présence
authoctone
The 2007 First Peoples' Festival/Presence Authoctone,
June 10 - 21, was held in various locations in Montreal. The film
and video programs are part of the festival, which is organized
by the Land InSights Society as a 9-day celebration of art, film,
music, the written word, storytelling, and dance from the First
Nations of Canada and other indigenous peoples from the Americas.
The Festival always includes events on June 21, Canada's National
Aboriginal Day. Opening Night screened the romantic and off-beat
comedy from New Zealand, Eagle vs. Shark (director: Taika
Waititi) and more than forty five films were screened. Awards
were given:
Creation Category
- Teueikan Grand Prize: William. Director: Eron Sheean
- Teueikan Second Prize: Tuli. Director: Aurelio
Solito
Community Category
- Rigoberta Menchu Grand Prize: Pirinop, My First Contact.
Directors: Mari Corrêa and Karané Txicao
- Rigoberta Menchu Second Prize: Weaving
Worlds. Director: Bennie
Klain
Séquence Magazine Awards for Documentary
- Best Documentary: Riding with Ghosts. Directors: Joe
Hubers and James Starkey
- Special Honor: Kiviaq vs. Canada. Director: Zacharias
Kunuk
Best Short: Imbé Gikegu/The Scent of the Pequi
Fruit. Directors: Takuma Kuikuro and Marica Kuikuro
Best Animation: Popul
Vuh. Director: Ana María
Pávez
Best Cinematography: Anna Howard for William (director:
Eron Sheean)
Main Film Youth Award: Kevin Papate and Gilles Penoway
for Wabak
The Festival awarded the Dr. Bernard Chagnan Assiniwi Prize to
athlete and leader Billy Two Rivers.
8/29/07

The 2006 First Peoples' Festival/Presence authoctone,
May 25 - June 8 and June 21 - 25, was held in various locations
in Montreal. The film and video programs are a key part of the
festival, which is organized by the Land InSights Society as a
9-day celebration of art, film, music, the written word, storytelling,
and dance from the First Nations of Canada and other indigenous
peoples from the Americas. This year's awards were:
Creation Category
Communities Category
- Rigoberta Menchu Grand Prize: Urban Inuk (Qallunajatut).
Director: Jobie Weetaluktuk
- Rigoberta Menchu Second Prize: Nikamun/Chanson. Director:
Myriam Caron
- Special Mention: Indian Summer: The Oka Crisis. Director:
Gil Cardinal
Séquence Magazine Documentary Prize
- Brockett 99-Rockin' the Country. Director: Nilesh C.
Patel
Cinematography Prize
Main Film Youth Award
4/05/07

The 15th First Peoples Festival, held June 13 -
22, 2005, showcased over 80 documentaries, feature and short fictions,
and music videos, with screenings at the National Film Board in
Montreal and on the Kahnawake Mohawk Reserve. A highlight of this
years festival was a special retrospective of the work,
1970s to the present, of Bolivian filmmaker, Jorge Sanjines, who
presented his most recent film, Los Hijos del ultimo jardín.
The festival, organized by Land InSights Society for the Promotion
of Native Culture, is a 9-day celebration of art, film, music,
the written word, storytelling and dance from the First Nations
of Canada and indigenous peoples from North and South America.
Each year the festival coincides with Canadas National Aboriginal
Day on June 21.
Award-winning films were:
Creation Category (two grand prizes)
Communities Category
- Rigoberta Menchu Tum Grand Prize: Stolen Spirits of Haida
Gwai. Director: Kevin MacMahon.
- Rigoberta Menchu Tum Second Prize: Heavy Metal. Directors:
Neil Diamond (Cree) and Jean-Pierre Maher.
Séquences Prizes
- Best Documentary Feature Film. Basal Banar. Director:
Kanakan Balintagoes.
- Best Documentary Short. Mujaan. Director: Chriss McKee.
9/2/05

2002 First Peoples' Film Festival, held June 10 - 21 in
Montreal, announces its awards:
|
Communities Category |
- Rigoberta Menchu Tum Grand Prize: Shomotsi by
Vincent Carelli and Valdete Pinhanta Ashenika (Ashenika).
Produced by Video nas Aldeias/Video in the Villages, Brazil
- Rigoberta Menchu Tum 2nd Prize. Rocks
with Wings by Rick Derby
- Rigoberta Menchu Tum 3rd Prize: Boomtown
by Bryan Gunnar Cole
|
|
Creation Category |
|
|
For more information go to www.nativelynx.qc.ca/English/2002prix.htm.
9/02/02

Awards are announced for the 2003 First Peoples' Film Festival,
held June 10-22 in Montreal:
- Community Category Rigoberta Menchu Tum Grand Prize
1st Prize: If the Weather Permits.
Director: Elisapie Isaac (Inuit)
2nd Prize: The Spirit of Annie Mae. Director: Catherine
Ann Martin (Mik'maq)
- Creation Category Teueikan Grand Prize
1st Prize: Tu es, je suis...l'invention des Jivaros.
Director: Yves de Peretti
2nd Prize: The Bow and the Lyre. Director: Priscilla
Barrak Ermel
For more information go to www.nativelynx.qc.ca/.
1/30/04

Geografías Suaves Cine/Video/Sociedad
(Soft Geographies Film and Video Festival)
The 2004 Geografías Suaves Cine/Video/Sociedad
festival in Mexico was presented April 30 - May 7 in Mérida,
Yucatán; was then shown in several community settings,
and concluded July 31 - August 7 in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca. This
sixth annual presentation included invitational screenings, a
children's program, multimedia events, workshops, a roundtable
discussion about the boundaries of documentary, and an open forum
to present projects and discuss issues.
- Bichito de Maíz Award/Best Work in Indigenous Language:
Guie' Bigua. Director: Mayra Jiménez (Zapotec)
Other awards given included the following indigenous productions:
- Bichito Award for Best Documentary
Rostro de la Historia Indígena. Director: Mariano
Estrada (Tzeltal)
- Miguel Barbachano Ponce Bichito de Oro Award (shared)
El Rey de Zinacantán. Director: Antonio Coello
- Special Mention
Television series Los Pueblos de México. Co-produced
by: Ojo de Agua Comunicación
Geografías Suaves is an independent festival which throughout
the year promotes audiovisual expression in all kinds of film
and electronic media through contests, workshops, meetings, and
an annual festival. It has developed in seven southern states
of Mexico--Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz
and Yucatán-and in Belize and Guatemala. It includes a
strong focus on urban, rural, and indigenous topics produced in
the many languages of the region.
For further information visit www.cine-video-sociedad.org
(In Spanish only).
11/8/04

Festival: April 30 - May 7 (Merida) and July 31 - August 7
(Oaxaca)
Geografías Suaves: Concurso Regional de Cine y Video
Merida, Yucatan
Geografías Suaves is a regional festival which promotes
audiovisual expression in all kinds of video and electronic media.
It includes a strong focus on urban, rural, and indigenous topics.
Works produced in indigenous languages are welcome. Videomakers
from Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz,
Yucatán, Guatemala, and Belize are invited to submit their
works for consideration. Migrants from these regions currently
living in the United States are also eligible.
For more information, please go to www.cine-video-sociedad.org.
3/10/05

Heard Museum Film Festival
The dynamic Heard Museum Film Festival, held biennially
in Phoenix, and the museum's biennial film showcase have been
put on hold. In the meantime the museum has begun a series of
regular monthly screenings of outstanding new films and videos.
For further information contact Wendy Weston or Lorinda Simmons
at 602-252-8840.
8/12/08

The Heard Museum Film Festival, held October 12 - 14,
2007, in Phoenix, Arizona, presented more than 40 films. Most
works were about the indigenous Americas, but the festival also
included films set in countries such as Bosnia, Morocco, South
Korea and South Africa.
Feature narrative films and long documentaries included:
For more information go to www.heardmuseum.org
12/04/07

The Heard Museum Film Festival, October 12 - 15, 2006,
opened with a screening of Expiration Date (director: Rick
Stevenson) preceded by the short work Cowboys and Indians
(director: Patrick Mehaffey).
Other feature films and documentaries included
A special program featured the original 1920 movie version of
The Last of the Mohicans, with a new musical score composed
by Mohegan composer Brent Michael Davids who also conducted a
workshop on composing for films. Short films screened included
Grace, Sa'ah,
My Darkest Hour, Gesture
Down (I Don't Sing), and the American Indian Film Institute
Tribal Touring Program Student Films.
10/7/07

The Heard Museum Film Festival, held June 19 - 22, 2003
on the Museum's grounds in downtown Phoenix and at the AMC Arizona
Center Theaters, presents more than 50 outstanding Native works
from Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, and U.S.-feature films, documentaries,
and student works. The festival opens and closes with two Maori
feature films, The Whale Rider (Director: Niki
Caro) and the U.S. premiere of Crooked Earth (Director:
Sam Pillsbury) that focus in different ways on contemporary Maori
life in New Zealand and the richness of Native traditions.
5/30/03

IMAGeNation Aboriginal Film & Video Festival
The 7th annual IMAGeNation Aboriginal
Film and Video Festival was held February 17 - 20, 2005 in
Vancouver, British Columbia, organized by the Indigenous Media
Arts Group (IMAG), a center for the festival, media programs for
area Reserve communities, critical discussion of Aboriginal film
issues, and media training.
The highlight of opening night at the Vancouver Friendship Centre
was an honoring event for actor and filmmaker Gary
Farmer. Opening Ceremonies started with a traditional welcome
by the people of the territory, featuring traditional drumming
and dancing by the Coast Salish and, highlighting the inclusion
this year of a new program of films from Latin America, by guests
from Vancouver's Latino community. Closing Night featured the
world premiere of Our City, Our Voices, created as part
of Storyscapes, a project conceived and developed by Kamala Todd
(Métis/Cree) as a storytelling initiative for people in
Vancouver. Provided multimedia tools and training to tell their
own stories, residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside produced
the two films in the program, Follow the Eagle and Slo-Pitch.
Feature films screened included The
Business of Fancydancing, Bearwalker,
and American Indian Graffiti. Outstanding short features
and documentaries included award winning fiction Two
Cars, One Night (director: Taika
Waititi (Maori)); Stolen Spirits, on Residential Schools
(director: Judy Manuel-Wilson (Secwepemc)), Memory,
a reflection on death and family (director: Cedar
Sherbert (Kumeyaay)); Goodnight
Irene, set in a reservation hospital waiting room (director:
Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek
and Cherokee)); and Indians and Who? a meditation on family
and image, (director: Dorothy Christian (Okanagan/Shuswap)).
This year IMAG organized its first REDSKINS Drive Home
festival, April 29 - May 1, 2005, on the Splats'in Reserve near
Enderby, British Columbia, which screened 20 films at the Vernon
Performing Arts Centre and the Starlight Drive-In, one of British
Columbia's two remaining drive-in movies.
For more information go to www.imag-nation.com.
7/15/05

The 6th annual IMAGeNation Aboriginal Film and Video Festival
was held February 26 - 29, 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia,
organized by the Indigenous Media Arts Group (IMAG), a center
for the festival and media training. More than 60 works were screened,
including international indigenous works, stories from the North,
indigenous athletes, and stories of resilience and resistance.
Opening night was hosted by actor/director/physician Evan Adams,
along with a Salish welcome from members of the Musqueam and Squamish
communities.
The Festival honored Alanis
Obomsawin (Abenaki) for "the monumental stature"
of her achievements in the documentary field, and screened Our
Nationhood. World and North American premieres included
Inuk Woman City Blues by Laila Hansen (Inuk), Resistance
by Doreen M. Manuel (Secwepemc/Ktumexa), In the Name of the
Lord by Shawn Mussell (Skwah), and Powwow, directed
by Uhduh Pahwooned and produced by Clair Pahwooned (Comanche).
Redwire Native Youth Media Society presented 23 short works by
emerging artists. A special forum sponsored by Vancouver's Museum
of Anthropology, "Voices of Repatriation," focused on
documentaries from Canada, Australia, and Norway by Gil
Cardinal (Metis), Loretta Todd (Metis/Cree), Paul Anders-Simma
(Sami) and the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association.
For complete program information go to www.imag-nation.com.
6/15/04

imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
The 8th annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
was held October 17 - 21, 2007, in Toronto. The festival screened
nearly 100 films, held two pitch competitions, and presented panels
on acquisition, indigenous language in film [list topics]. Other
original programs included a standing room only performance by
artist and media maker Kent Monkman
[and Gerald McMaster]. The festival award winners are below.
- Best Dramatic Feature: Four
Sheets to the Wind. Director: Sterlin
Harjo
- Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award: Water Flowing
Together. Director: Gwendolen
Cates
- Obomsawin Documentary Award Honorable Mention: Miss
Navajo. Director: Billy
Luther
- Best Short Drama: Shooting Geronimo. Director:
Kent Monkman
- Short Drama Honorable Mention: Nana. Director:
Warwick Thornton
- Short Drama Honorable Mention: Taua/War Party.
Director: Tearepa Kahi
- Best Short Documentary: The Vanishing Trace.
Director: Keesic Douglas
- Documentary Honorable Mention: Territoire des Ondes/Land
and Airwaves. Director: Patrick Bolvin
- Best Indigenous Language Production: Nikamowin/Song.
Director: Kevin Lee Burton
- Best Canadian Short Drama: The Colony. Director:
Jeff Barnaby
- Best Experimental: Nikamowin/Song. Director:
Kevin Lee Burton
- Experimental Honorable Mention: 4-Wheel War Pony.
Director: Dustinn Craig
- Best Music Video: Punassion (Marco Bentz, Carl
Gregoire, Francis Gregoire, Spencer St-Onge, John-Cristophe
Gabriel, James Chescappin)
- Music Video Honorable Mention: Maori Boy. Director:
Michael Jonathan
- Best New Media: An Indian Act: Shooting the Indian Act.
Director: Arthur Pechawis
- Best Radio-Arts and Entertainment: Red Moon.
Producer: Dawn Dumont
- Radio-Arts and Entertainment Honorable Mention: The
Native Radio Theatre Project: The Best Way to Grow Pumpkins.
Writer: Rhiana Yazzie
- Best Radio-Documentary, Current Affairs, Talk Show: Good
Medicine Radio Show: Tobacco Show. Producers: Rita Chretien
and Wanbdi Wakita
- Radio-Documentary, Current Affairs, Talk Show Honorable
Mention: Road to Reclamation. Producer: Wilma Green
- Cynthia Lickers Sage Award for Emerging Talent: Fighter.
Director: Erica
- Sage Emerging Talent Award Honorable Mention: Fifteen.
Directors: Cody Cayou and Travis Tom
- Documentary Pitch Prize: Gail
Maurice for Beneath City Streets (working
title)
- Drama Pitch Prize: Jeff
Barnaby for Blood Quantum (working title)
- IFC Mentorship Program: Shane Belcourt
For more information go to www.imaginenative.org.
1/06/08

The 7th annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
took place October 18 - 22, 2006, in Toronto, Ontario. The festival
screened 96 films; held two pitch competitions and a screenwriting
workshop; and presented panels on acquisition, first features,
funding, and international markets. The festival award winners
are below.
8/27/07

The imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, held October
19 - 23, 2005, in Toronto, Ontario, selected more than 100 international
indigenous works and performance arts, and offered both documentary
and fiction pitch sessions and excellent panel discussions.
The award winners were:
- Best Dramatic Feature: Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo
Oliveros/The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros. Director: Kanakan
Balintagos
- The Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award: Mohawk
Girls. Director: Tracey Deer
- Best Short Drama: Wapos Bay: There's No "I"
in Hockey. Director: Dennis Jackson
- Best Short Documentary: Wirriya Small Boy.
Director: Beck Cole
- Best Experimental: Su Naa/My Big Brother. Director:
Helen Haig-Brown
- Best Music Video: Meegwetch. Artist: Tamara
Podemski
- Best Radio: Red Album Radio Show. Director:
Richard Hunter
- Best New Media: Horizon Zero 17:TELL. Director:
Cheryl L'Hirondelle
- The Cynthia Lickers-Sage Award for Emerging Talent:
Meskanahk/My Path. Director: Kevin Burton
- Drama Pitch Prize: Paul
Rickard for Sideways North
- Documentary Pitch Prize: Connie Walker
- Alliance Atlantis Mentorship Program: Gail Maurice
- Curatorial Incubator Program: Wanda Nanibush and Zoe
Leigh Hopkins
For more information, enter
here.
12/07/05

The 5th ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, October
20 - 24, 2004, announces its 2004 award winners.
- The Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award: The
Ghost Riders. Director: Vincent
Blackhawk Aamodt (Blackfoot/Lakota/Mexican)
- Documentary - Honorable Mention: Basal Banar.
Director: Kanakan Balintagos (Palaw'an-Philipino)
- Best Dramatic Feature: Pear
ta Ma 'On Maf/The Land Has Eyes. Director: Vilsoni
Hereniko (Rotuman-Fijian)
- Cynthia Lickers-Sage Award for Emerging Talent: Ariel
Lighteningchild (Cree/Ojibwe) for Swallow
- Emerging Talent- Honourable Mention: Jeff Barnaby (Mi'kmaq)
for From Cherry English
- Television - Honourable Mention: Raven Tales.
Director: Simon James (Kwakwakawakw) and Chris Keintz
(Eastern Cherokee)
- Best Short Drama: Memory.
Director: Cedar Sherbert
(Kumeyaay)
- Short Drama - Honourable Mention: Might
of the Starchaser. Director: Dega
Lazare (Mohawk)
- Best Experimental: Wagon Burner. Director: Terrance
Houle (Blood)
- Experimental - Honourable Mention: Little Gold Cowboy.
Director: Michael Reinhana (Maori/Pacific Islander)
- Best Television: Kunuk
Family Reunion. Director: Zacharia
Kunuk (Inuit)
- Best Radio: Great Indian Bus Tour. Producer/Host:
Andre Morriseau (Ojibwe)
- Best New Media: Kokonda Dub for Fire This Time
- New Media - Honourable Mention: Lisa Reihana (Maori)
for LisaReihana.com
- Best Music Video: Possibly. Director: Daybi
(Cree)/Slangblossom
- Music Video - Honourable Mention: Black Out.
Director: Jeff Barnaby (Mi'kmaq)
- Drama Pitch Prize: Dawn Dumont (Cree) for Eliot
- Documentary Pitch Prize: Tasha Hubbard (Cree) for Girl
- Alliance Atlantis Mentorship Program Winner: Lisa Jackson
(Ojibwe)
- The Milestone Award: Alanis
Obomsawin (Abenaki)
10/29/04

4th ImagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival, October
22-26, 2003, Toronto, announces its 2003 award winners:
- The Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award: Totem:
The Return of the G'psgolox Pole. Director: Gil
Cardinal (Métis)
- Documentary-Honourable Mention: Anaana/Mother.
Directors: Mary Kunuk (Inuit) and Marie-Hélène
Cousineau and Our
Nationhood. Director: Alanis
Obomsawin (Abenaki)
- Cythia Lickers-Sage Award for Emerging Talent: Daybi
aka Geoffery Parenteau (Cree)
- Emerging Talent- Honourable Mention: Nitanis Desjarlais
(Cree/Métis)
- Best Dramatic Feature: The
Doe Boy. Director: Randy
Redroad (Cherokee)
- Drama- Honourable Mention: The
Business of Fancy Dancing. Director: Sherman Alexie
(Spokane/Coeur d'Alene)
- Best Radio: The Aboriginal Music Experience: A Radio
Documentary Series: Part 2- "Rex Bluez" and Part 3-
"Contemporary Aboriginal Music". Producer/Host:
Elaine Bomberry (Ojibwe/Cayuga)
- Radio- Honourable Mention: Daryl Coon Jr. (Lac Courte
Oreilles Ojibwe), WOJB Radio
- Best Experimental: Thorn Grass. Director: D.
Robin Hammer
- Best Music Video: Music
Is the Medicine. Director: Randy
Redroad
- Music Video- Honourable Mention: I'm
a Lucky One. Director: Randy
Redroad
- Best Television: Moccasin Flats: The Series.
Director: Stacey Curtis
- Best Short Drama: Moccasin
Flats. Director: Randy
Redroad
- Best New Media: www.daybi.com.
Daybi and www.firethistime.com.
DJ HAP aka Henrik Broberg (Inughuit)
- IFC/ Alliance Atlantis Documentary Development Prize:
High School Confidential. Sharlene Azam.
- Documentary Development Honourable Mention: Lime,
Green & Pink. Darlene
Naponse (Ojibwe)
For contact information enter
here.
3/2/04

3rd imagineNATIVE Media Arts Festival, held October 24-27
in Toronto, announces its 2002 award winners:
- The Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award: Hotere.
Director: Mereta Mita (Maori)
- Documentary-Honourable Mention: The
Island. Director: Aleksei Vakhrushev (Inuk)
- Best Drama: Bearwalker.
Director: Shirley Cheechoo
(Cree)
- Drama-Honourable Mention: Only
the Devil Speaks Cree. Director: Pamela Matthews (Cree)
- Best Radio Program: The Aboriginal Music Experience.
Producer: Elaine Bomberry (Ojibwe/Cayuga)
- Best Experimental Work: Rooster Rock. Media
artists: Bonnie Devine and Rebecca Garret.
- Best Television Work: Jaynelle:
It's Never Easy to Escape the Past. Director: Coleen
Rajotte (Cree/Metis)
- Best Multimedia Work: The Earth Does Not Belong
to Us, We Belong to the Earth. Presenter: Nikita Kaplan
(Evenik), Vice-President of RAIPON-Russian Association of Indigenous
Peoples of the North
For contact information enter
here.
11/25/02

Indian Summer Image Awards
The Indian Summer Film & Video Image Awards were held
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 10, 2005. The Image Awards
are part of Indian Summer Festival, a three day outdoors event,
and are a collaboration between the festival, Looking Glass Productions,
Milwaukee Public Museum, and the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee.
A Thousand Roads,
the Signature Film of the National Museum of the American Indian
won two top awards and was screened as the closing event of the
awards ceremony. Truman Lowe, NMAI curator of contemporary arts,
accepted the awards.
2005 Award winners:
- Spirit Award for Best of All Categories: A
Thousand Roads. Director: Chris
Eyre.
- Feature Film: Fiction Award of Excellence: A
Thousand Roads. Director: Chris
Eyre.
- Documentary Feature Award of Excellence: Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native Action. Director: Roberta
Grossman.
- Documentary Feature Awards of Distinction: Pulling
Together. Director: James
Fortier. Black Indians: An American Story. Director:
Steve Heape. When I Hear Thunder. Director: Dirk Olsen.
Spirit Riders
Riding to Mend the Sacred Hoop. Director:
James Kleinert.
- Documentary Short Award of Excellence: The Gift
of Diabetes. Director: Brion Whitford.
- Documentary Short Awards of Distinction: The Boy
Who Visited Muini'skw. Director: Mary Luka. Making of
"The Boy Who Visited Muini'skw. Director: Mary Luka.
Lakota Workcamp. Director: Jill Orschel. Salt Song
Trail. Produced by The Cultural Conservancy.
- Student Award: Lakota Workcamp. Director: Jill
Orschel.
- Music Video Award of Distinction: Commodity Cheese
Blues. Musician: Wade Fernandez.
For further information, please go to www.indiansummer.org.
9/13/05

On September 10, 2004 the 2nd Indian Summer DeltaVision Film
and Video Image Awards were given to 9 productions:
- Spirit Award for Best Work in all Categories: Waasa
Inaabidaa/We Look in All Direction -- Ojibwe Oral Traditions
(Part 6). Director: Lorraine Norrgard. Associate producer:
James Fortier.
- Awards of Excellence:
- Documentary Feature: In
the Light of Reverence. Director/producer: Christopher
McLeod.
- Documentary Short: The Oneida Speak. Director:
Michelle Danforth.
- Awards of Distinction were given to Waasa Inaabidaa
- Ojibwe Oral Traditions (Part 6) and Treaties (Part
1), Totem: The Return of
the G'psgolox Pole, Rocks
With Wings, Adrian Wall: Greet the Sun, and artists
profile, The America Indian Center - 50 Years of Service,
and the music video Crab.
For further information about other events and this year's new
music awards go to www.indiansummer.org.
10/04/04

On September 6, 2003 the 1st Indian Summer DeltaVision Film
and Video Image gave Spirit Awards to:
Winners of Awards of Excellence were:
- Documentary Features:
Alcatraz is Not an
Island. Director/producer: James M. Fortier
The Return of
Navajo Boy. Director/producer: Jeff Spitz and Bennie
Klain
- Documentary Short: If
the Weather Permits. Director: Elisapie
Isaac
- Educational: Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican: Our People,
Our Culture. Director: Molly Miller for the Mohican North
Star Casino & Bingo
- Feature Film/Fiction: Bonnie Looksaway's Iron Art
Wagon. Director: Wes Studi
- Live Short: Thorn Grass. Director: Robin Hammer
- Music: My Moccasins. Director: Dale Waseta
- Public Service: Rez-Robics for Couch Potato Skins.
Directors: Pam Belgarde and Gary Rhine
- Sales and Marketing: Until the Eagle Falls.
Directors: Janice Marie Johnson and Jean Paul Vercher
For awards of distinction and other information go to www.indiansummer.org.
2/5/04

Indigenous Film and Arts Festival in Denver
The 4th annual Indigenous Film & Arts Festival was
held October 8 - 14, 2007, in Denver, organized by the International
Institute for Indigeous Resource Management and presented with
partners including the University of Denver, the Native Student
Alliance, Native American Law Student Association, and Center
for Multicultural Excellence.
Feature films included:
Short works included:
- Newen (director:
Jennifer Aguilar Silva)
- Green Bush
(director: Warwick Thornton)
- Kumeyaay: Survival in the Weave (director: Edward
Kramer)
- Carriers of Culture (director: R.J. Joseph)
- Short works presented by filmmakers from the Native youth
media organizations Longhouse Media and Wapikoni Mobile
The festival featured exhibitions by artists Bunky Echohawk and
Natasha Keating and musical performances by jazz singer Andrea
Menard, and musical and dance groups Ritmos di mi Peru, Comparza
Morelos en Denver, and Halau Hula O Na Mauna Pohaku.
For more information go to www.iiirm.org/Events/
2/18/08

The Indigenous Film Festival was launched
in Denver, Colorado, on November 19 - 21, 2004, to showcase the
creative work of indigenous filmmakers, writers, directors and
actors. The theme for the first festival, which is organized and
presented by the International Institute for Indigenous Resource
Management, was "The Continuum of Culture: Reclaiming Tradition,
Preserving Culture, and Adapting for the Future."
The festival screened Kunuk
Family Reunion, Finding
My Talk: A Journey Into Aboriginal Languages, The Whale
Rider, American Aloha: Hula
Beyond Hawai'i, and Qayaqs
& Canoes: Native Ways of Knowing. A student program,
held in conjunction with the Denver Public Schools Office of Indian
Education and the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs, screened
Christmas at
Wapos Bay and The Rabbit's
Tail and other animations from the American Indian Resource
Center.
Featured speakers were Witi Ihimaera (Maori), author of the novel
The Whale Rider, and independent filmmaker Paul
Rickard (Cree). For further information go to www.iiirm.org.
12/23/04

Indigenous Rights Film Festival
The 2nd Indigenous Rights Film Festival was held June
17 - 19, 2005 at American University in Washington, D.C. The festival
is co-sponsored by Indigenous Rights Watch and the American University
Washington Internship for Native Students Program. This year featured
Oil on Ice (directors: Dale Djerassi and Bo Boudart), Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native Action (director: Roberta
Grossman), and Bones of Contention and Cahto Tribe
Laytonville Rancheria Dump.
For more information go to www.indigenousrightswatch.org.
8/08/05

The Indigenous Rights Film Festival, at American University
in Washington, D.C., is organized by Indigenous Rights Watch in
partnership with the university's Washington Internship for Native
Students (WINS) program, Washington College of Law's Center for
Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Amazon Watch, and Amazon Alliance.
Held November 5 - 7, 2004, the program included screenings of
To Protect Mother Earth: Broken Treaty II, Incident
at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story, In
the Light of Reverence, Drumbeat for Mother Earth**,
Una Muerte en Sion/A Death in Zion, and Soy Defensor
de la Selva/I am a Defender of the Forest.
For more information go to www.indigenousrightswatch.org.
1/25/05

International Cherokee Film Festival
On October 13 - 17, 2005, the 2nd International Cherokee Film
Festival was held in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Participating filmmakers
and actors included Chris Eyre
(Cheyenne/Arapaho), Joseph Erb
(Cherokee), Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo),
Georgina Lightning (Cree), Cody Lightning (Cree), Chris
Kientz (Cherokee), and Eddie
Spears (Lakota). Director Shirley
Cheechoo (Cree) was honored with a retrospective of her work.
Opening Night, emceed by Wes Studi
at the Cherokee Casino in Catoosa, Oklahoma, featured the screening
of NMAI's signature film A
Thousand Roads, introduced by director Chris Eyre and
the NMAI Film and Video Center's Michelle Svenson, with opening
remarks by Principal Chief Chad Smith. A Thousand Roads
was also presented at Tahlequah High School and Sequoyah High
School.
Awards given were:
- Founder's Award: A
Thousand Roads. Director: Chris
Eyre. Produced by the National Museum of the American Indian.
- Best Feature: Black
Cloud. Director: Rick
Schroder
- Best Director-Feature: Rick
Schroder
- Best Native Feature Documentary: Trudell.
Director: Heather Rae
- Best Director-Feature Documentary: Heather
Rae
- Best Documentary: Pikutiskwaau/Mother
Earth. Director: Shirley
Cheechoo
- Best Director-Documentary: Shirley
Cheechoo
- Best Multicultural Feature Documentary: Sea Warriors:
The Royal Navy in the Age of Sail. Director/producer: Chip
Richie
- Best Director-Multicultural Feature: Chip Richie
- Best Short: Green
Bush. Director/screenwriter: Warwick
Thornton
- Best Director-Short: Shirley
Cheechoo for In Shadow
- Best of Short Film Nook: Goodnight
Irene. Director/screenwriter: Sterlin
Harjo
- Best Director-Short Film Nook: Steven Edell for Hanbleceya/Vision
Quest
- Best Actress: Julia Jones in Black
Cloud; Emily Hampshire in In Shadow
- Best Actor: Cody Lightning in Hanbleceya/Vision
Quest; David Page in Green
Bush; Eddie Spears
in Black Cloud
- Most Originality-Feature: Director: Larry
Blackhorse Lowe for 5th
World
- Most Originality-Short: Director: Warwick
Thornton for Green
Bush
- Most Originality-Short Film Nook: Mark Hall, Shawn
McCully and Michael Prada for The Diner
- Best Animation: Raven Tales. Director/producer/screenwriter:
Chris Kientz
- Best Variety: James and Erniefied '04: Live in Farmington,
NM. Director: Justin Hunt
- Best Student Film: The Greasy Warlock Project.
Director: Tim Shell. Screenwriter: Derick Drain.
- Best Student Animation: How the Indian Got Medicine.
Directors/screenwriters: Students of Gore High School. Producer:
Wathene Young
- Best Screenplays: Rick
Schroder for Black
Cloud; Sterlin Harjo
for Goodnight Irene;
Julia Chan for In Shadow
- Best Cinematography: Nano Debassige for Pikutiskwaau;
Bob Tullier for Sea Warriors; Steve Gainer for Black
Cloud
- Best Narrator: John
Trudell in Trudell
- Best Music Video: Commodity Cheese Blues. Artists:
Wade Fernandez & The Black Wolf. Producer: Rez Music Video
- Best Rhythm & Blues/Pop/Rock: World Peace.
Artist: Gil Silverbird. Producer: One Little Indian Boy Publishing
- Best Native Gospel: Cherokee Sunday Morning.
Artists: Cherokee National Youth Choir
- Best Native Flute: Sedona Free. Artist and producer:
Micki Free
12/07/05

Latin American Film and Video Festival
The 18th Latin American Film and Video Festival, held
November 1 - 16, 2004 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, screened
16 works from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, the United States,
and Venezuela, including La Historia de Todos/Our Story,
directed by Blanca Xóchitl Aguerre, featuring claymations
by the children of indigenous migrant farm laborers. Filmmaker
Byrt Wammack, the founder of Geografias Suaves, a regional film
and video festival showcasing productions from southern Mexico,
Guatemala, and Belize, was in residence at the University of North
at Chapel Hill from November 8 - 16, screening new Mayan works
by the production company Turix/Dragonfly
and discussing film and video from these regions.
11/29/04

Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival
The 2007 Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, held November
9 - 11, 2007, at the American Museum of Natural History in New
York, featured approximately 30 films concerned with diverse cultures
and indigenous life around the world. This festival was founded
in 1977 to celebrate the 75th birthday of the eminent anthropologist.
Works in the program illuminated themes of music in contemporary
cultures and, to complement a current exhibition, various films
concerned with water, community and the environment. Two documentaries
located in indigenous communities were Nömadak Tx
(director: Raul de la Fuente) follows two Basque musicians who
visit with musicians in a number of other autonomous communities
in the world and Grito de Piedra/Scream of the Stones (director:
Ton van Zantvoort) looking at the relationships to mining and
tourism by in an indigenous community in Peru.
11/19/07

The Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, held November
11 - 14 and November 20 - 21, 2004 in New York City, screens independent
cultural documentaries from around the world, including views
and viewpoints of Native peoples. This festival began in 1977,
to celebrate the seventy-fifth birthday of anthropologist Margaret
Mead and her fifty years of service at the American Museum of
Natural History. The festival includes panel discussions by filmmakers
and academics as well as networking opportunities for participants.
Some of the films screened at the 2004 festival will also be featured
in the 2005 Margaret Mead Traveling Film and Video Festival. The
following films were co-presented with the Smithsonian National
Museum of the American Indian Film and Video Center:
- Native Pride. Directors: 911 Media Arts Center/Young
Producers Project (Swinomish youth)
- Paatuwaqatsi: Water, Land, & Life. Director: Victor
Masyesva, Jr. (Hopi)
- Raven Tales: How Raven Stole the Sun. Directors: Simon
James (Kwakwakawakw) and Chris Keintz (Cherokee)
- Rez-Robics for Couch Potato Skins. Director: Pam Belgarde
(Ojibwe)
- Totem: The Return of the
G'psgolox Pole. Director: Gil
Cardinal (Métis)
For more information, go to www.amnh.org/mead.
11/17/04

In November the 2002 Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival
in New York features two Native American productions. In The
Spirit of Annie Mae, Mi'kmaq director Catherine Martin explores
the story of activist Annie Mae Aquash, killed in 1975 in South
Dakota, The Chiapas Media Project's Walking Towards the Dawn
explores the unique community workshops developed to aid the thousands
of indigenous people displaced by violence in Chiapas.
For contact information, enter
here.
Related content on this site: Puntos
de Vista/Viewpoints from Chiapas and Guerrero
10/21/02

Margaret Mead Film Festival
November 2 - November 10, 2001
The festival celebrated its 25th anniversary with a spotlight
on several important filmmakers whose work has been featured in
the years of the festival. Among those selected was Alanis Obomsawin
(Abenaki), one of Canada's (and Native America's) most distinguished
documentary filmmakers. The Mead Festival does not award prizes
but has an international reputation as a showcase for outstanding
documentaries. Among the works with Native American subjects were
Paul Henley's The Legacy of Antonio Lorenzano (Warao
of Venezuela); Esteban Larrain's Ralco (Pehuenche
of Chile); Alejandra Navarro Smith's Scenes of Resistance
(Maya of the Zapatista movement in Mexico); Alanis' Richard
Cardinal: Cry from the Diary of a Métis Child, Rocks at
Whiskey Trench (Mohawks in Canada), and Listuguj
(work-in-progress from Listuguj and Burnt Church Mi'kmaq Reserves
in Canada) and Matthew Testa's The Buffalo War (includes
Lakota in the U.S.). The Mead Festival is a program of New York's
American Museum of Natural History.
For contact information, enter
here.
12/10/01

Message Sticks Film Festival
Message Sticks Film Festival held May 4 - 6, 2007, at
the Sydney Opera House, presented Australian and world indigenous
documentaries and short fictions. Curated by Rachel Perkins and
Darren Dale, the festival was produced in association with Indigenous
Screens Australia and the Indigenous Unit of the Australian Film
Commission. This year there were 21 world premiere films showcasing
the latest in indigenous drama, comedy, documentary and shorts
plus the Sydney premiere of Crocodile Dreaming starring
Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil. Actress Tamara
Podemski (Saulteaux) attended to introduce, Four
Sheets to the Wind (director: Sterlin
Harjo) for which she won the Special Jury Award for Best Actress
at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival..
For more information: www.sydneyoperahouse.com/sections
/
whats_on/boxoffice/event_details.asp?EventID=2227&sm=1&ss=1
7/17/07

Message Sticks Film Festival, held May 27 - 29, 2005,
at the Sydney Opera House, presented Australian and world indigenous
documentaries and short fictions. Curated by Rachel Perkins and
Darren Dale, the festival was produced in association with Indigenous
Screens Australia and the Indigenous Unit of the Australian Film
Commission. The film festival is part of the Message Sticks Indigenous
Arts Festival, an extensive cultural showcase at the Sydney Opera
House held during Reconciliation Week.
The festival screened Case 442 (director: Mitch Torres),
The Djarn Djarns (director: Wayne Blair), The Dream
of Love (director: Lawrence Johnston), Endangered (director:
Tracey Rigney), Goodnight,
Irene (director: Sterlin
Harjo), Grange (director: Catriona McKenzie), Green
Bush (director: Warwick
Thornton), The Lore of Love (director: Beck Cole),
Our Bush Wedding (director: Adrian Wills), Plains Empty
(director: Beck Cole), Sa Black Thing (director: Rima Tamou),
Tama Tu (director: Taika
Waititi), Trudell
(director: Heather Rae), Two
Cars, One Night (director: Taika
Waititi), and Yellow Fella (director: Ivan
Sen).
Bird Runningwater of the Sundance Institute and filmmaker Merata
Mita held a public conversation on the subject "Coulouring
the Landscape: The Emergence of Indigenous Film". Awards
given were:
- Bob Maza Fellowship: Tom Lewis, actor and musician,
subject of the film Yellow Fella
- Tudawali Award: Dot West, radio and film producer,
and director of Goolarri Media, in Broome, Australia
For more information, enter
here.
8/8/05

The Message Sticks Film Festival, held June 11 -13, 2004,
in Sydney, Australia, presented an international selection of
indigenous films. Curated by Rachel Perkins and Darren Dale, the
festival was presented by Indigenous Screen Australia in association
with the Sydney Opera House. This year's event featured as special
guest Bird Runningwater, director of the Sundance Institute's
Native Program. Presentations from New Zealand included programs
from the recently-launched Maori Television. From Australia were
a new documentary by Ivan Sen
and three documentaries from the Central Desert by Catriona McKenzie,
Beck Cole, and Warwick Thornton, as well as programs from Francis
Jupurrula Kelly's acclaimed series Bush Mechanics. The
festival also featured the Australian premieres of works by Chris
Eyre, Zoe Hopkins, Alanis
Obomsawin, Randy Redroad
and Cedar Sherbert.
12/23/04

Morelia International Film Festival
The 5th Morelia International Film Festival/Festival Internacional
de Cine de Morelia, October 5 - 14, 2007, presented works in state,
national, and international competition; special screenings; documentaries;
panels and other events-filling the streets and theaters of the
historic downtown of Morelia, in the state of Michoacán,
Mexico. A highlight this year was the festival's inaugural First
Nations Forum, a 3-day international screening program and panel
discussions.
Festival award winners included two works with indigenous subjects:
- Best Short from Michoacán: Axuni Atari/Cazador
de venados/ (director: Raul Maximo Cortes (P'urhepecha))
- Special Mention for Documentary: La frontera
infinita (director: Juan Manuel Sepulvéda Martínez)
Other works in competition by indigenous directors were:
Other works in competition with Native stories and locations
were:
- Camino a una massacre/A Massacre Foretold (director:
Nick Higgins) Screening included Q&A with members of
the Tzotzil organization, Las Abejas: José
Alfredo Jiménez, Javier Ruiz Perez and Pablo Romo.
- Cochichi (directors: Laura Amelia Guzmán
and Israel Cárdenas)
- El camino Mayo con la otra campana (director:
Nicolas Défossé)
The inaugural First Nations Forum built on programs and
discussions organized during previous Morelia Film Festivals that
focused on indigenous works and filmmakers from the state of Michoacán,
from Mexico, and from the United States. This year's far-reaching
programming was developed by UNESCO's cultural officer Frederic
Vacheron to include both indigenous American and international
productions from UNESCO's ICT4ID program. Thirty works were screened
from Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, the United States
and Gabon.
In addition to Vacheron, other participants in the two panel
discussions and screenings were Yolanda
Cruz (Chatin), Juan José
García (Zapotec), José
Alfredo Jimenez (Tzotzil), Damian
Lopez (Zapotec), José
Luis Matias (Nahua), Raul Maximo Cortes (P'urhepecha), Pedro
Daniel López (Tzotzil), Pavel
Rodriguez (P'urhepecha), Hector Sandoval (Driki), and Amalia
Córdova, program manager of the NMAI Film and Video Center's
Latin American Program.
For more information go to www.moreliafilmfest.com.
1/07/08

The 3rd Morelia International Film Festival, October 8
- 16, 2005 in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico presented works by the
following indigenous directors:
A full-day conference on October 10, "Native Agents: A Binational
Conference on Indigenous and Indigenist Media", was curated
by filmmaker and scholar Jesse Lerner. The event was covered in
local and Mexican national newspapers, and the New York Times.
Three roundtables were presented:
- A Problematic History. Moderator: Tania Blanich of Natiional
Video Resource. Panelists: directors Dante
Cerano (P'urepecha) and Aureliano Soto (P'urepecha), Amalia
Córdova of NMAI's Film and Video Center, Tarek Elhain
of University of California-Berkeley and Bird Runningwater (Mescalero
Apache) of Sundance Film Festival.
- The Documentary Impulse. Moderator: Patty Zimmerman of Ithaca
College. Panelists: directors Yolanda Cruz (Chatina), Pedro
Daniel López (Tzotzil), Roberto Ovivares), and Carlos
Pérez Rojas (Mixe).
- Features. Moderator: director Bruno
Varela. Panelists: film critic Jorge Ayala Blanco, MoMA
film curator Sally Berger of the Museum of Modern Art and director
Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo).
The awards included the following indigenous works:
- Best Documentary in Competition: Muxes, auténticas,
intrépidas, buscadoras de peligro. Director: Alejandra
Islas
- Best Michoacan Short: Cheranásticotown. Director:
Dante Cerano
- Special Mention: Últimas memorias vivas. Director:
Antonio Zirión
- Special Mention: Mensajero de los dioses. Director:
Pavel Rodríguez
For contact information, enter
here.
2/2/06

The 2nd annual Morelia International Film Festival,
was presented October 1 - 9, 2004 in the city of Morelia, in Michoacán,
Mexico. Nine indigenous works were screened in Documentary and
Shorts competitions. Dante Cerano's (P'urhepecha) first feature,
Uarhicha en la Muerte, had a sold-out screening. A panel
on "Forms and Destinies of Indigenous Media," included
P'urhepecha videomakers Dante Cerano, Aureliano Soto and Raúl
Máximo Cortés, and was moderated by Amalia Cordova
of the NMAI's Film and Video Center.
The Morelia festival offers film screenings, panel discussions,
exhibitions, and other events to meet outstanding figures in Mexican
and international film. The Festival promotes new talents of Mexican
cinema and promotes the cultural wealth of the state of Michoacán.
A reprise of Mexican shorts and documentaries from the Morelia
International Film Festival was held at the Cineteca Nacional
in Mexico City from October 13-17, 2004.
For more information visit www.moreliafilmfest.com.
10/8/04

Naalkid Summer Film Festival
Naalkid (Moving Pictures) Film Festival,
organized by media producer Charmaine Jackson (Navajo), made its
debut on June 28 - 30 2002 in Farmington, New Mexico with a focus
on films set in the Four Corners area, including Rocks
with Wings and The
Return of Navajo Boy.
For contact information enter
here.
9/3/02

Nanookfilmfest
Nanookfilmfest screens documentaries about peoples of
diverse cultures and about the environment. International submissions
are welcomed. The Festival was held October 7 - 12, 2005 in Palermo,
Italy. World indigenous works included Fata Morgana, a
documentary about the Chuckchis of Siberia, directed by Anastasia
Lapsui (Nenets) and Markku
Lehmuskallio. Nanookfilmfest, founded in 1998, was formerly
known as Il Silenzioso Richiamo della Terra/The Silent Call of
the Earth.
For more information, go to www.nanookfest.it.
2/2/06

On November 22 - 26, 2004, the 6th "Il Silenzioso Richiamo
della Terra" international documentary festival
in Palermo, Sicily, selected 18 works for screening (the festival
will be known as Nanookfilmfest starting in 2005). Directed
by Giovanni Massa, the festival was organized with the Nanook
Cultural Association and the Cooperative of Workers in Cinema
and Theater, with participating filmmakers from Italy, Germany,
Belgium, Finland, Israel, the United States, and Canada. In 1998,
the festival's first year, a Native American documentary program
was featured with Hopi videomaker Victor Masyesva, Jr., independent
filmmaker Peter von Puttkammer, and NMAI's Elizabeth Weatherford
presenting the screenings and participating in a panel discussion.
Featured in 2004 was The Shirt
by Shelley Niro. This video had
premiered in Italy at the 2003Venice Biennale, one of the world's
most prestigious art exhibitions. Niro's exhibit at the Biennale,
Pellerossa Sogna (Redskin Dream), was organized by the
Indigenous Arts Action Alliance (IA3) and the National Museum
of the American Indian.
1/31/05

Native American Film and Video Festival
Native American Film + Video Festival
Festival: March 31 - April 3, 2011
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
New York, New York
www.nativenetworks.si.edu
7/5/11

Native American Film Festival - NH
On April 13-15, 2007, the Friends of the Oglala
Lakota and Keene State College Film Society presented the Native
American Film Festival in Keene, New Hampshire. Opening Night
featured a lecture by Penobscot leader Barry Dana, and a screening
of NMAIs A Thousand
Roads, directed by Chris
Eyre. Among the other works screened were: Aboriginal
Architecture, Living Architecture, directed by Paul
Rickard; Expiration Date, directed by Rick Stevenson;
One More River, directed by Tracey
Deer and Neil Diamond
and Pulling Together, directed by James
Fortier. During the festival, Barry Dana demonstrated paddle
carving and traditional uses of birch bark, and there was also
basket making demonstration and basket sales. For more information,
please go to www.lakotafriends.org.
9/9/07

On March 25 - 26, 2006, the Friends of the Oglala
Lakota presented the 4th Native American Film Festival
in Keene, New Hampshire. Among the works screened were: Johnny
Tootall (director: Shirley
Cheechoo), Paloma de Papel/Paper Dove (director: Fabrizio
Aguilar), The Salt Song Trail (director: Esther Figueroa),
Aleut Story (director: Marla Williams), Hank Williams
First Nation (director: Aaron James Sorenson), A Seat at
the Table (director: Gary Rhine),
Trudell (director:
Heather Rae) and We're Still
Here (director: Sindi Gordon).
3/29/06

Native Cinema Showcase
The National Museum of the American Indian and the Center for
Contemporary Arts presented the 5th annual Native Cinema Showcase,
August 19 - 22, 2005, in Santa Fe, during Indian Market, Opening
Night presented NMAI's signature film,
A Thousand Roads, with executive producer and NMAI
director Rick West, director Chris
Eyre, producer Scott Garen,
writer Joy Harjo, and actor
Jeremiah Bitsui. Other works,
introduced by their directors, included Trudell
(director: Heather Rae), which
was featured on the cover of The Reporter weekly journal, Other
features included 5th World
(director: Larry Blackhorse Lowe),
Edge of America
(director: Chris Eyre) and Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native Action (director: Roberta
Grossman. The program presented short fictions, including
films by Sierra Ornelas and Nanobah
Becker; cinema classics; a live musical performance by Gary
Farmer and The Renegades; and a discussion with artists Nora
Naranjo-Morse and James Luna
moderated by Paul Chaat Smith. Screenings and other events were
held at the CCA, with an off-site screening of IAIA 2005 Summer
Workshop productions at the IAIA Museum and an encore program
organized by Tazbah McCullah and Charmaine Jackson-John at the
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque.
For complete program enter here.
12/30/05

The 2001 Native Cinema Showcase was launched in Santa
Fe by the Institute for American Indian Arts, National Museum
of the American Indian and Taos Talking Pictures on August 13
- 16, 2001 in Santa Fe, NM. The festival, held at the time of
Indian Market, features outstanding Native feature films and documentaries.
Among the participants are Irene Bedard, George Burdeau, Shirley
Cheechoo, Gary Farmer,
Michael Horse, Jim Jarmusch, Victor Masayesva, Jr., and Randy
Redroad.
For more information go to www.nmai.si.edu
and www.ttpix.com.
Related content on this site: 2001
Native Cinema Showcase
10/25/01

Native Eyes Film Showcase
In September 2005 the 2nd annual Native Eyes Film Showcase
was held in Tucson, Arizona. On September 16 - 17, 5th
World was presented by director Larry
Blackhorse Lowe, preceded by his short film Shush.
On September 24, A Thousand
Roads was screened twice, for the Tucson High School Media
Literacy Program and for the general public. Poet/musician and
screenwriter Joy Harjo (Muscogee
Creek) introduced the film and discussed her own development as
a writer in dialogues with filmmaker Lurline
Wailani McGregor (Native Hawaiian), and with Elizabeth Weatherford.
Each Saturday in September a curated program of Native animations
was shown for the Tucson Citizen Kids' Movie ClubWesakechak
Tales: The First Spring
Flood and How
Wesakechak Got His Name; Raven
Tales: How Raven Stole the Sun; and Two
Winters: Tales from Above the Earth. On September 25 the
curator presented short works from the U.S. and Australia: Green
Bush (director: Warwick
Thornton), Flat (director:
Nanobah Becker), Goodnight,
Irene (director: Sterlin
Harjo), and Kava Kultcha
(director: Leah Kihara). The
2005 Native Eyes guest curator was Elizabeth Weatherford, head
of NMAI's Film and Video Center. On September 26, she also spoke
on "Complexities: Visions of Native Women in Film" at
the University of Arizona. Native Eyes was presented by the Arizona
State Museum, the Jack and Vivian Hanson Film Institute and The
Loft Cinema.
9/30/05

In Tucson, AZ on November 12, 2004, the University of Arizona
presented Native Eyes: An Evening of Film, screening Yada
Yada and The
Return of Navajo Boy with filmmaker Bennie
Klain and writer Beverly Singer.
1/25/05

Native Filmmakers Showcase-UNM
The Kiva Club of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque
produced its Native Filmmakers Showcase, April 26 - 29,
2005, as part of the 50th anniversary of UNM's Nizhoni Days. Among
the more than 30 works screened were 5th
World, Cold Feet, Happy Boy, and Shush
(director: Blackhorse Lowe),
Flat (director: Nanobah
Becker), His Light (directors: Pierre Barrera and Migizi
Pensoneau), Goodnight,
Irene (director: Sterlin
Harjo), The Snowbowl Effect (director: Klee
Benally), Our Nationhood
(director: Alanis Obomsawin),
and Trudell (director:
Heather Rae). Filmmakers speaking
included Randy Redroad (Cherokee),
Beverly Singer (Tewa and Navajo),
and Dustinn Craig (White Mountain
Apache and Navajo).
8/4/05

The Native Filmmakers Showcase presented by the Southwest
Film Center at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque was
held April 22 - 25, 2004. Feature films screened were The
Business of Fancy Dancing by Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur
d'Alene), Dancing on the Moon by Rodrick Pocowatchit (Pawnee/Shawnee/Comanche),
and A Seat at the Table by Gary Rhine. Also screened were
short films by producers Corey Allison (CRIT/Navajo), Thomas Andrews
(Navajo), Arlene Bowman (Navajo), Henry Brownwolf (Santo Domingo
Pueblo/Sioux), Tazbah Chavez
(Bishop Paiute/Navajo/Apache), Steve Gonzales (Paiute/Shoshone/Yokuts/Kumeyaay),
Larry Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo), and Jonathen Sims (Acoma Pueblo).
Also in April, the UNM Anthropology Department celebrated its
75th Jubilee Anniversary with a benefit for its Indigenous Film
Series, screening Honey
Moccasin by Shelley Niro
(Mohawk) and Shush by Larry Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo). An
Indigenous Filmmakers Roundtable discussion, moderated by Charmaine
Jackson (Navajo), director of Ná'ál kíd (Moving
Pictures) Summer Film Festival, included filmmakers Lena
Carr (Navajo), Darren Kipp (Blackfeet), and Tazbah
Chavez (Bishop Paiute); UNM professors Les Field and Ann Ramenofsky;
and Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne/Mescalero Apache), director of
the Native American Program at Sundance Film Festival.
6/14/04

Native Voice Film Festival
The 2007 Native Voice Film Festival and Media Awards was
presented November 11 - 14 in conjunction with the National Congress
of American Indians' annual meeting in Denver. The annual festival
is produced by Native Voice Media, Inc., the South Dakota-based
business that also publishes the news weekly The Native Voice.
This year's festival showcased recent outstanding Native films
presented by the filmmakers and cast members, with panel discussions.
They were Indians
for Indians (director: Ava
Hamilton), Way of the Warrior (director: Patty
Loew), Four
Sheets to the Wind (director: Sterlin
Harjo), Waterbuster
(director: J. Carlos Peinado),
Our Land, Our Life (directors: George Gage and
Beth Gage) and Imprint
(director: Michael Linn). Ivan
Maki of Arizona PBS organized and produced the program "Native
Vision," two panel discussions on "Renewable Energy
in Indian Country" and on "Native Youth in America."
Actress Q'orianka Kilcher hosted the Native Voice Media Awards,
which included a keynote speech by Wilma Mankiller and traditional
and contemporary musical performances. The awards were:
- Media Leadership: Wilma Mankiller
- Education: Oglala Lakota College
- Mainstream Journalism: C-Span
- Empowerment: NIKE Native American Business
- Building Bridges through Media: HBO for Bury My
Heart at Wounded Knee
- Native Innovator: Chris
Eyre
For more information go to www.native-voice.com
2/22/08

Pacifika: New York Hawaiian Film Festival
Pacifika: New York Hawaiian Film Festival has announced
a hiatus because of the closing in 2007 of its parent organization
the Hawai'i Cultural Foundation. Founded in 1997, HCF was created
with the vision of building a vibrant community for Hawaiian and
Pacific Islander traditional and contemporary arts to thrive in
New York City. In 2003 the HCF founders, Janu Cassidy and Michelle
Akina, launched the film festival, which was presented annually
in New York until 2006. Among the filmmakers, musicians, specialists,
and leaders featured in these years were Hawaiian filmmakers Eddie
Kamae (the noted musician) and Myrna Kamae, film archivist DeSoto
Brown, kuma hula Robert Cazimero, kuma hula Patrick Makuakane,
Maori filmmaker Merita Mita, President Te Maru of Tahiti and Congressman
Eni Faleomavaega of American Samoa.
In May 2007 Pacifika and the NMAI Film and Video Center produced
the first Pacifika Showcase: A Celebration of Pacific Islands
Films at the George Gustav Heye Center. The opening night
on May 10 featured Naming
Number Two (director: Toa
Fraser) with film great Ruby Dee
portraying the matriarch of a family of Fijians living in New
Zealand. A lively roundtable with Ruby Dee, Janu Cassidy and Elizabeth
Weatherford of NMAI followed. On May 12 nine additional works
were screened including Tama
Tu (director: Taika
Waititi), Hawaikii
(director: Mike Jonathan)
and Rolling
Down Like Pele (director: Laura
Margulies) and Polynesian
Power: Islanders in Pro Football (directors: Jeremy
Spear and Robert Pennington), with Margulies and Spear discussing
their works. For more information and to download the Pacifika
Showcase brochure, enter here.
These works and more were screened during May at the NMAI in Washington,
D.C. in daily and special weekend programs; for program information
enter here.
Currently Pacifika is redefining its goals and objectives for
the future, including continuing its partnership with the National
Museum of the American Indian and other key cultural institutions
and organizing a traveling, global component of the festival.
For more information about HCF and Pacifika, go to http://hawaiiculturalfoundation.org.
1/07/08

The 3rd annual Pacifika: New York Hawaiian Film Festival,
was presented May 20 - 22, 2005 by the Hawai'i Cultural Foundation
in cooperation with New York University Graduate Department of
Film and Television. The opening night featured the documentary
The Hawaiians: Reflecting Spirit, introduced by director
Edgy Lee, and preceded by the short film Gravity (director:
Josefa Enari). Highlights included documentaries An Island
Invaded, introduced by co-director Esther Figueroa, Blue
Horizon (director: Jack McCoy) and Kamea (director:
Jennifer Akana-Sturla). Closing night featured Polynesian Power:
Pacific Islanders in Pro Football, introduced by directors
Jeremy Spear and Robert Pennington, preceded by Two
Cars, One NIght (director: Taika
Waititi). Special featured filmmaker was Maori director Merata
Mita, who introduced both her documentary on a renowned Maori
artist, Hotere, and the 1980's classic feature Utu
(director: Geoff Murphy). Opening and closing nights also featured
musical performances, and the festival offered workshops on Hawaiian
language, hula and ukulele, along with lectures on massage and
chanting and a presentation by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs
on Native Hawaiian self-government.
For more information enter
here.
9/2/05

The 2004 Pacifika New York Hawaiian Film Festival, May
21 - 23, 2004 screened 22 films at 3 Manhattan venues. The festival
opened with the New York premieres of On the Waves at Waikiki,
a short work filmed in the 1920s, introduced by Desoto Brown of
the Bishop Museum Archives, and The Ride, Nathan Kurosawas
film about a surfer who time travels back to the era of Waikiki
surfing legend Duke Paoa Kahnanamoku. The opening gala featured
music performed by Robert Cazimero, who also conducted hula workshops
during the festival. Among the short works screened were Leah
Kihara's Kava Kultcha
and Stan Wolfgramm's Dot's
Death. Produced by the Hawaii Cultural Foundation
with the cooperation of New York University, the festival also
featured workshops on hula and Hawaiian language, dance performances
and lectures on subjects such as Native Hawaiian self-government.
For more information, visit hawaiiculturalfoundation.org/events/2004/pacifika.
7/9/04

May 15 - 18, 2003
The Hawai'i Cultural Foundation (HCF) presented its first Pacifika
Hawaiian Film Festival in New York City in collaboration with
New York University's Graduate Department of Film and Television.
Works screened included the opening night special American
Aloha: Hula Beyond Hawai'i (2003. Directors: Lisette
Marie Flanery and Evann Siebens). Among the thirteen other
films screened were i
scream, floats & Sundays (2002. Director: Leah
Kihara (Native Hawaiian)) and Ka'ililauokekoa
(2002. Director: Kala'iokona Ontai (Native Hawaiian)). Cultural
classes, including hula instruction with kumu hula Robert Uluwehi
Cazimero and kumu hula Patrick Makuakane, were also part of the
events.
For more information contact HCF at www.hawaiiculturalfoundation.org
5/25/03

Palm Springs Native American Film Festival
On March 14 - 18, 2007, the Palm Springs Native American Film
Festival and Cultural Weekend was presented by Agua Caliente
Cultural Museum and Camelot Theaters in Palm Springs, California.
The festival opened with One Dead Indian, introduced
by lead actress Pamela Matthews.
Also shown at the festival was Trespassing
(director: Carlos Demenezes), When Your Hands Are Tied
(director: Mia Boccella Hartle) and The Canary Effect
(directors: Robin Davey and Yellow Thunder Woman). The centerpiece
of the festival was Smoke
Signals, with both Sherman
Alexie and Chris Eyre in
attendance. The closing night film was The Velvet Devil,
about a young Métis woman who leaves home to find fame
as a 1940s jazz singing sensation.
For more information: www.accmuseum.org/page40.html
7/17/07

On March 14 - 19, 2006, the Palm Springs Native American Film
Festival and Cultural Weekend was presented by Agua Caliente
Cultural Museum and Camelot Theaters in Palm Springs, California.
The festival's opening night featured Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native Action (director: Roberta
Grossman). The closing night screening was Trudell
(director: Heather Rae), preceded
by a short work, Ramona. Other short works included Numbe
Whegeh, Grace, One-eyed Dogs Are Free, and
Goodnight Irene.
Documentaries included Aleut Story, Teachings of the
Tree People: The Life of Bruce Miller, and Spirit Riders:
Riding to Mend the Sacred Hoop. The family program included
Sigwan and Wapos Bay:
There's No "I" in Hockey. The festival and Cultural
Weekend culminated in an exhibition of contemporary art and a
gala dinner honoring author N.
Scott Momaday. For more information, enter
here.
3/30/06

The 4th annual Palm Springs Native American Film Festival,
was presented March 3 - 6, 2005 in Palm Springs, California by
the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum (ACCM) and the Camelot Theatre.
The opening night reception followed the screening of Hank
Williams First Nation (director: Aaron Sorensen). The festival
hosted the world premiere of Pulling Together (director:
James Fortier) and screened
for its special closing night, A
Thousand Roads (director: Chris
Eyre) and Raven Tales (directors: Simon
James and Chris Kientz).
During this year's festival ACCM and the Californian Indian Storytelling
Association co-hosted the Southern California Indian Storytelling
Festival, with Native storytellers from California and Hawai'i
and a program of family storytelling animated short films. Among
the more than 20 films screened were A Journey Home: Reclaiming
Our Children (director: Tina House), A Tattoo on My Heart:
The Warriors of Wounded Knee (directors: Charles Abourezk
and Brett Lawlor), The Ghost Riders
(director Vincent Blackhawk
Aamodt), Vis a Vis: Native
Tongues (director: Steve Lawrence and Phil
Lucas), and Kikkik (director: Martin Kreelak).
7/15/05

The 3rd annual Palm Springs Native American Film Festival,
held March 11 - 14, 2004 in Palm Springs, California was presented
by the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum and the Camelot Theatres.
More than 20 feature-length and short films were shown. A lively
panel discussion with participants, moderated by NMAI's Elizabeth
Weatherford, included directors and producers Alanis
Obomsawin, Gary Rhine, Rick
Schroder, Sonny Skyhawk, and Jeremy
Torrie, and actors Adam Beach
and Russell Means.
Opening night featured the West Coast premiere of Chris
Eyre's A Thief
of Time and closing night Coyote Waits. Other works
screened included Cowboys
and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story, Crooked Earth,
Black Cloud, A
Seat at the Table: Struggling for American Indian Religious Freedom,
Our Nationhood,
and The World of American Indian Dance. Among the short
films shown were I Belong to This,
Marangmotxíngmo Mïrang:
From the Ikpeng Children to the World, Yada
Yada, i
scream, floats and Sundays, Retrace
and Paiute Indian of the Kern
Valley.
For further information go to www.NativeFilmFest.com.
4/1/04

Premio Anaconda
The Premio Anaconda festival features a touring program
of productions from the Amazon region and the tropical forests
of Latin America and the Caribbean. During October and November,
2004, screenings were held in sixteen indigenous communities in
the tropical forest regions of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Panama,
and Peru. The festival program was selected by Carlos Gutiérrez
from Peru and Jaime Iturri Salmín, M. Leonarda Mosua (Moxena),
and Iván Sanjinés, all from Bolivia. The tour culminates
in an awards ceremony in La Paz, Bolivia, on February 17, 2005.
Premio Anaconda winners receive cash awards and other prizes:
- Grand Prize: Buscando el Azul (Seeking the Blue).
2003. Director: Fernando Valdivia Gomez, Peru.
- Best Documentary: Soy Defensor de la Selva (I'm
the Defender of the Forest). 2003. Director: Eriberto Gualinga
Montalvo (Sarayaku Kichwa), Ecuador.
- Best Fiction or Docudrama: El Sueño de Maragareum
(Maragareum's Dream). 2003. Directors: Kumare
Txicao (Ikpeng), Karane
Txicao (Ikpeng), and Natuyu
Txicao (Ikpeng), Brazil.
- Best Experimental Work: Teco: El Niño Moejeño
(Teco: The Moejeño Child). 2004. Director: Ruben Machado
Navia, Bolivia.
The 2004 international awards jury members were Mario Tuki (Rapa
Nui), Chile; Juan José García
(Zapotec), Mexico; Eduardo López, Bolivia; Lesvia Vela,
Guatemala/Canada; Roberto Haudry, Peru; and Sebastiao Haji Manchineri
(Yine), Brazil.
For more information go to the website of the Programa Regional
de Apoyo a los Pueblos Indigenas Amazonicos at www.praia-amazonia.org.
All translations of film titles are provided by the NMAI Film
+ Video Center for informational purposes only.
1/10/05

The 2002 Premio Anaconda announced its awards on July
31, 2002 in Caracas, Venezuela. Dedicated to indigenous productions
from the Amazon region and tropical forests of Latin America and
the Caribbean, this festival features Native community screenings
in May and June in six Latin American countries. The winners were
selected by an international jury from more than 60 works entered
and received cash awards and other prizes.
- Grand Prize: Waia Rini,
O Poder do Sonho/Waia Rini, The Power of the Dream.
Director: Divino Tserewahu
(Xavante), Video nas Aldeias, Brazil
- Best Documentary: Marangmotxíngmo
Mïrang: From the Ikpeng Children to the World.
Directors: Kumaré
Txicão (Ikpeng), Karané
Txicão (Ikpeng), and Natuyu
Yuwipo Txicão (Ikpeng), Video nas Aldeias, Brazil
- Best Fiction: 0 Arco y a Lira/The Bow and the Lyre.
Director: Priscilla Barrak Ermel, Cacique Catarino Sebirop Gavaio
(Gavaio), Brazil
- Best Screenplay: El Anem. Writer: Willy Guevara
(Tsejem Teets), Peru
- Special Prize from the Rigoberta Menchu Tum Foundation:
Shomotsi. Director Valdete Pinhanta Asheninka (Asheninka),
Video nas Aldeias, Brazil
- Special Native Audience Prize: Shomotsi. This
prize is awarded by local jurors in the indigenous communities
that hosted the touring festival in Peru, Colombia, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia.
For more information go to www.videoindigena.bolnet.bo
(Spanish)
10/11/02

The Anaconda Awards for Native video in the Amazon region
was launched in Fall 2000 to support Native production and authentic
portrayals of Native cultures. Works from seven countries were
screened in various Native communities, with a showcase of 15
works screened December 2000 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.
Grand Prize: Wapte
Mnhono: The Xavante Initiation (Director: Divino
Tserewahu, Caimi Waiasse and others)
Best Documentary: Mehinaku, Message from Amazonia
(Director: Maria Ines Landgraf)
Best Fiction: Our Words: the Story of San Francisco
de Moxos** (Director: Julia Mosua)
Special Audience Prize: Native MidWives (Produced
by APCOB. Bolivia)
For more information go to www.videoindigena.bolnet.bo
(Spanish)
12/10/01

Red Fork Native American Film Festival
The 2004 Red Fork Native American Film Festival
(formerly the Muscogee Nation Film Festival) was held November
12 - 13 and 19 - 20 at Tulsa Community College in Oklahoma. Musician
and producer Joy Harjo (Muskogee)
performed songs from her latest album, Native Joy for Real.
Among the eight productions screened were Cowboys
and Indians: The J.J. Harper Story; American Indian
Graffiti, introduced by director Tvli Jacob (Choctaw); and
Dancing on the Moon, introduced by director Roderick Pocowachit
(Pawnee/Shawnee/Comanche).
1/6/05

Riddu Riddu Indigenous Peoples
Festival
On July 13 - 17, 2004, the Riddu Riddu Indigenous
Peoples Festival in Norway presented its second Urfilm
program, showcasing 28 films and videos in various genres. Works
screened are both Sami films and international indigenous works.
Special invited guests were Dene filmmakers Allan and Mary Code
from Canada with their documentary Nuhoniyeh: Our Story and
indigenous videomaker Mayaw Biho (Pangcah) from Taiwan, with three
works he has made about the Pangcah people. Other films included
If the Weather Permits.
Informal discussions with these and other filmmakers attending
were held in the Sámi turf hut. Riddu Riddu Festival offers
an extensive program of musical performances. This year a special
invitational section featured a number of musical groups from
Nunavut, including Taima with lead singer and filmmaker Elisapie
Isaac (Inuit).
For more information go to www.riddu.com.
12/23/04

Saami Film Festival
The Sami Film Festival, held April 2 - 6, 2007, in Guovdageaidnu,
Norway, featured more than 50 feature films, documentaries and
short works. Screenings each day were held in the Cultural House,
and each evening in the Ice Cinema, the first and only snowmobile/reindeer
drive-in. Three Sami premieres in the Ice Cinema included Anne
Risten Sara ja Ena II, Varit Leat Seammat,
and Ailo Cavge Davas. Sami director Nils Gaup introduced
a special program of works. Among the Native American works featured
were Miss Navajo
(director: Billy Luther), Waterbuster
(director: Carlos Peinado),
Mohawk Girls
(director: Tracey Deer) and The
Snowbowl Effect (director: Klee
Benally). Short works included Conversion
(director: Nanobah Becker),
Two Winters
(director: Carol Geddes), The
Winter Chill (director: Paul
Rickard) and First
Fire (director: Nathan
Young). Theatrical releases that led to lots of discussion
included Kill Buljo (director: Tommy Wirkola) and
Apocalypto (director: Mel Gibson). Other feature
films included the New Zealand production Eagle vs. Shark
(director: Taika Waititi).
The festival also featured a Storytelling Film Workshop led by
Navajo directors Blackhorse Lowe
and Nanobah Becker, and Sami
storytellers.
For more information: www.samifilmfestival.no/index.jsp?lang=en
7/17/07

Santa Fe Film Festival
The 8th Santa Fe Film Festival, held November 28 - December
2, 2007, screened feature and short films from around the world
while recognizing the lifetime contributions of select film artists.
Native films appeared [in the competition,] as well as in the
programming of the National Geographic All Roads Film Festival
which has partnered with the Santa Fe Film Festival since 2005
to present works by indigenous and minority filmmakers, and to
present an award for the best indigenous film at the Festival.
Other Native films were screened in the festival's Governor's
Cup Awards programA Return Home (director:
Ramona Emerson)and in
the New Mexico Shorts programsReclaiming Our Children
(director: Marcella Ernest), Future Warrior (director:
Jeana Francis), Two Hearts (director: Jason Asenap),
Echoes from Our Ancestors (director: Ed Breeding)
and Sculpting Heart (director: Tobias Katz).
The Santa Fe Film Festival awarded a Luminaria for lifetime
achievement to director Alanis
Obomsawin (Abenaki). Obomsawin has produced more than
30 documentaries, working under the auspices of the National Film
Board of Canada. In partnership with the All Roads Film Festival,
her festival tribute included the screening of Richard Cardinal:
Cry from the Diary of a Metis Child (1986) and her two
most recent works, Gene Boy Came Home (2007) and
Waban-aki (2006).
The festival's award for Best Indigenous Film went to
Miss Navajo
(director: Billy Luther). The
Best Short Film award went to the Aboriginal short drama from
Australia, Crocodile Dreaming (director: Darlene
Johnson). These works were part of the All Roads Film Festival's
Santa Fe program (a description of the 2007 All Roads Film Festival
can be found above).
For additional information go to http://santafefilmfestival.com.
1/07/08

The Santa Fe Film Festival was held December 6 - 10, 2006,
in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Films by or about indigenous people included:
- Benito's Gift (director: Rick Romancito)
- Conversion
(director: Nanobah Becker)
- Feathers and Cons (director: Ashley Tindall)
- Mud: The Creation of Traditional Navajo Pottery
(director Blackhorse Mitchell)
- Native Spirits: Forgotten Warriors (director:
Robert Viharo)
- Ten Canoes (director: Rolf de Heer)
- Vanishing Voices: The Story of Alex Seowtewa
(directors: Tobias Katz)
National Geographic's All Roads Film Project presented the New
Directions symposium, an indigenous film and photography workshop,
along with a slate of films. These were
Arctic Son, directed by Andrew Walton; The Devil's Miner,
directed by Kief Davidson; Mauna
Kea: Temple Under Siege, directed by Puhipau and Joan
Lander; My First Contact,
directed by Mari Correa and Kumare
Txicao, and Sueños
Binacionales, directed by Yolanda
Cruz.
3/26/07

The 5th annual Santa Fe Film Festival, held
December 1 - 4, 2004, has announced the winner of the 2004 Milagro
Award for Best Native Film: Raven Tales [Directors:
Chris Kientz (Cherokee) and
Simon James (Kwakwakawakw)]
This digital animation tells the story of how, in the beginning
times, Raven instigated a series of events that resulted in the
release of Sun to light the Earth.
Other Native American works screened:
- American Indian Graffiti. US. Directors: Steven Judd
(Choctaw/Kiowa) and Tvli Jacob (Choctaw).
- Dancing on the Edge. US. Directors: Miguel Najera (Apache)
and Alan Tafoya (Apache).
- Out of the Shadows of Silence. US. Director: Fidel
Moreno (Yaqui/Huichol).
- True Whispers: The
Story of the Navajo Codetalkers. US. Director: Valerie
Red-Horse (Cherokee).
For more information, go to www.santafefilmfestival.com.
1/5/05

Winner of the 2003 Best Native Film award
at the 4th Santa Fe Film Festival, held December 1 - 5,
2003, is Spirit of the Game
(2003, 47 min., Canada), directed by Annie
Frazier-Henry, which focuses on the rich legacy of sports
for First Nations people, profiling young participants in the
Indigenous Olympic Games held in Winnipeg.
Other Native American works screened, by both Native and non-Native
directors:
- American Nizhoni. 56 min. US. Director: John C. P.
Goheen.
- Mending the Sacred Hoop. 60 min. US. Director: James
Kleinert
- Only the Devil Speaks Cree.
32 min. Canada. Director: Patricia Matthews
- Shipibo. 100 min. Brazil/US. Director: Willem Malten
- Shush.10 min. US. Director: Blackhorse Lowe
- Totah. 29 min. US. Director: Christian Regnaudot
- The World of American Indian Dance. 60 min. US. Randy
Martin
For further information go to www.santafefilmfestival.com
2/15/04

Winner of the 2002 Best Native Film award at the Santa Fe
Film Festival, held December 4 - 8, 2002, is Lady Warriors
directed by John C.P. Goheen. The work focuses on the 2000 "dream
season" of the Tuba City High School girls' cross country team.
It also won Best Documentary in the first Tribeca Film Festival
in New York in May 2002.
Other Native American and Aboriginal Australian works screened:
- Billy. 2002, 3 min. US. Director: Vanessa Vassar. Starring
Jill Scott Momaday.
- Boutique of the Damned.
2002, 6 min. US. Director: Bentley
Spang.
- Darren Vigil Gray: Counterclockwise. US. 30 min. Director:
Vanessa Vassar
- Eagle Song.
2002, 3 min. US. Director: Lurline McGregor
- Echoes of Extinction: The Affidavit. 2002, 30 min.
US. Director: Tex Wounded Face
- Keeping Balance. 2002, 6 min. Canada. Director: Scott
Clark
- Making a Noise: A Native Musical Journey with Robbie Robertson.
1998, 52 min. US-Canada. Director: Dana Heinz Perry
- Rabbit-Proof Fence. 2002, 94 min. Australia. Director:
Philip Noyce
- Redstreak Sculptor. 2002, 16 min. US. Director: Ty
Headman
- Wakan. 2002, 28 min. US. Director: Robert E. Zimiga,
Jr.
For contact information enter
here.
1/16/03

Skábmagovat Film Festival
Each year the Skábmagovat Film Festival screens
new Sami works and invites the films from one other indigenous
people of the world, with a focus this year on African cinema.
Held January 25 - 30, 2007 in Inari, Finland, this year's festival
screened more than thirty films and short videos from Norway,
Finland, Sweden, Nigeria, South Africa, and the Sudan. The feature
films included Non Profit (director: Pauliina Feodoroff),
a Finnish feature on the encounter of researchers go to an Arctic
village to find out how little energy a community needs if it
has all the possible high technology available. Saamelainea/Sápmelas
(directors: Anastasia Lapsui
and Markku Lehmuskallio)
explores the Finnish Arctic. Archival films and short works were
also included including a children's protest in Sami Children
Demand Sami TV. The South African, Oscar-awarded Tsotsi
(director: Gavin Hood) tells the story of a young and angry gang
leader in the Johannesburg slums of Soweto and an event that changes
his life. In the critically-acclaimed Son of Man
(director: Mark Dornford-May), the South-African theatre group
Dimpho di Kopane projects the New Testament into today's Africa.
Short documentaries took up serious topics of communitydepression,
AIDS, rapefaced by indigenous people and villagers in both
continents.
For more information: www.siida.fi/skabma/800en.html
7/17/07

The Skábmagovat Film Festival was held January
26 - 30, 2006 in Inarintie and Ivalo, Finland. The festival screened
more than twenty Sámi films and eleven films produced by
Mexicos Promedios de Comunicación/Chiapas Media Project,
including The Sacred Land
and Xulum'chon: Weavers in Resistance
from the Highlands. Amaranta Cornejo Hernández
of Promedios center in San Cristóbal de las Casas,
Chiapas, attended the festival. The Skábmagovat Prize for
achievements in cinema went to Sverre Porsanger (Sámi).
Porsanger has acted for thirty years. He performed the lead role
in Bázo (2003), directed by Lars-Gorän Petterson
and screened by the festival. In addition to his feature film
roles, Porsanger directs for NRK Sámi Radio, a radio and
television broadcaster.
3/8/06

The Skabmagovat: Reflections of the Endless Night film
and television festival, organized annually in January during
the polar night, was held January 27 - 30, 2005, at the Sami Museum
and Nature Centre Siida in the village of Inari, Finland, in the
Arctic Circle. The festival screens fiction films and documentaries
by Sami directors and producers, and each year also presents films
made by one other indigenous people in the world. In 2005 the
festival will host Maori of New Zealand as special guests. Among
the new Sami productions to be screened is Ánne Lajia Utsis
documentary Tundra Settlers and the feature film Bazo.
The Skabmagovat Film Festival has been held since 1999 and consists
of three visual events, the festival, the Sieiva Govat Seminar
on Sami photography, and Camera Borealis photography exhibition.
The festival translates large numbers of films and subtitles them
into Finnish and Sami, with interpretation in English. In previous
years the festival has focused on films from the Komi Republic
(2004), HawaiI and the Pacific with guest Kalai Okona Ontai
(2003), Video in the Villages project in Brazil with guests Mari
Correa and Divino Tserewahu
(2002), works from Nunavut and Igoolik Isuma productions with
guest Norman Cohn, (2001), First
Nations films from Canada with guest Alanis
Obomsawin (2000) and Aboriginal Australian work with guests
Willie Gordon and Walter Saunders (1999).
The festival is produced by Sari Valkonen and the artistic director
is Jorma Lehtola. For more information go to www.siida.fi/skabma/
or email siida@samimuseum.fi.
1/31/05

Southwest Native American Film & Video
Festival
The third Southwest Native American Film and Video Festival
took place July 14 - 15, 2006 at the Museum of Northern Arizona
in Flagstaff, Arizona. The festival was coordinated by Klee
Benally and presented by Indigenous Action Media, Flagstaff
Cultural Partners, and the Museum of Northern Arizona. The opening
night feature documentary was Trudell
by Heather Rae, and there was
a panel discussion on Saturday about Native filmmaking. The festival
showcased 21 short by local young talents, including Leahn Cox,
Tori Nez, Shonie de la Rosa,
and Sarah del Saronde.
7/17/06

On July 9, 2005, the 2nd Southwest Native American
Film & Video Festival took place at the Museum of Northern
Arizona in Flagstaff. The screenings were part of the six-week
Native American Festival of Arts and Culture, concluding with
an evening screening of the feature 5th
World (director: Blackhorse
Lowe). A selection of short films explored sociological and
political issues facing Native communities in the Southwest, curated
by filmaker and musician Klee
Benally, including Native Aspect Ratio and Playing NDN?
(director: Alan Natachu), Blood Ties (director: Leahn Cox),
and A Call to Action! (director: Carey Tully). Longer works
included The Snowbowl Effect (director: Klee
Benally) and Methamphetamine Abuse on the Navajo Nation
(director: Shonie De La Rosa).
9/2/05

Southwest Native American Film & Video Festival
was held at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, July
16 - 17, 2004. with cooperating partner Indigenous Action Media.
Filmmakers whose works were screened include Klee Benally (Diné),
Malcolm Benally (Diné), Norman Brown (Diné), Kelly
Byars (Choctaw), Dustinn Craig (White
Mountain Apache), Bennie Klain
(Diné), Larry Blackhorse Lowe (Diné), Ramona Emerson
(Diné), Shonie De La Rosa (Diné), Wallees Crittendon
(Diné), Aiyana Elliot/Dick Dahl, Joseph Stacey (Hopi/Laguna)
and Gabriel Lopez Shaw (Paiute).
7/29/04

Sundance Film Festival
At the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, held January 18 -
28, in Park City, Utah. Eagle vs. Shark, directed by Taika
Waititi (Te Whanau a Apanui) screened in the World Dramatic
Competition, and Four
Sheets to the Wind, directed by Sterlin
Harjo (Seminole/Creek) screened in the US Dramatic Competition.
The Festival awarded a Special Jury Prize for Acting to Tamara
Podemski (Saulteaux) for her role as Miri Smallhill in Four
Sheets to the Wind.
Miss Navajo,
directed by Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna
Pueblo) and Tuli, directed by Auraeus
Solito (Palaw'an) screened in Spectrum. Conversion,
directed by Nanobah Becker
(Navajo) and Move Me, directed by Jonathan Pulley
(Laguna) screened in the US Shorts Competition.
Native Forum Roundtables included "The Burden of Representation",
moderated by Heather Rae (Cherokee),
with participants Sterlin Harjo
(Seminole/Creek), Billy Luther
(Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo), Auraeus
Solito (Palaw'an), and Taika
Waititi (Te Whanau a Apanui). George Palelei led the discussion
"Art & Technology Blended Worldwide" with a presentation
of First Vision, his streaming video distribution platform for
the internet.
Indigenous Sundance Institute/Ford Foundation Film Fellows attended
the Festival to discuss their projects with industry leaders.
The 2007 fellows were Ginew Benton
(Ojibway/Cree), Julianna Brannum (Comanche), Melissa
Henry (Navajo), and Nathan Young
(Pawnee/Kiowa/Delaware).
Elizabeth Weatherford, head of NMAI's Film and Video Center (FVC),
was selected as on of the twenty-four jurors from the global film
community, serving on the World Documentary Award jury with directors
Juan Carlos Rulfo from Mexico and Raoul Peck from Haiti and the
US.
11/29/07

The 25th Sundance Film Festival, held January
19 - 29, 2006, in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, screened
four indigenous works this year.
- World Dramatic Competition
The Blossoming
of Maximo Oliveros. Philippines. Director: Auraeus Solito
(Palawan)
No. 2. New Zealand. Director/screenwriter: Toa Fraser
(Fijian/British/New Zealander)
- Shorts Competition
Gesture Down (I Don't Sing). US. Director/screenwriter:
Cedar Sherbert (Kumeyaay)
Smudge. Canada. Director/screenwriter: Gail Maurice (Métis)
Between January 23 - 26, the Sundance Native Forum held
five events. Native Program director Bird Runningwater moderated
two panel discussions. "Native Cinema and the Marketplace"
brought together filmmakers at the festival with industry professionals:
producers, distributors, and publicists and "Investing in
Indigenous Cinema" invited Festival directors and funders
to discuss strategies for Native independent film. A festive brunch
launched the events, which concluded with a gala reception at
the Legends Bar at Park City Mountain Resort.
A major component of the Native Forum is the Sundance Ford
Fellowship Workshops in which Native American filmmakers and
their projects are selected to attend the festival and participate
in one-on-one meetings with established filmmakers and industry
leaders. This year's filmmakers were Leslie Gee (Caddo/Delaware/Choctaw),
Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo),
Billy Luther (Navajo/Hope/Laguna Pueblo), and Andrew
Okpeaha MacLean (Inupiaq). The workshop is made possible with
a grant from The Ford Foundation's New Works Initiative.
Other Native participants in this year's festival included two
jurors: Heather Rae in
the Documentary Competition and Rachel Perkins in the World
Cinema Documentary Competition.
4/5/06

In 2005 the Sundance Film Festival, January January 20
- 30, 2006 - increased the number of screenings of Native and
indigenous works by playing them within the major festival categories.,
including the Independent Feature Film Competition and the World
Cinema Competition, as well as in American Spectrum, the Short
Film Competition, and Special Screenings categories. In previous
years such films were screeened on a more limited basis within
the Native Forum category of the festival. Eleven films by Native
American and indigenous filmmakers were selected, including five
films from Native American directors, compared to three films
in 2004. An award winner was Tama Tu, which garnered an
honorable mention in Best Film Shorts category.
|
US Documentary Competition |
|
|
|
World Documentary Competition |
- Dhakiyarr vs. the King. Australia. Directors:
Allan Collins and Tom Murray (Willi Willi Nation)
|
|
American Spectrum |
|
|
|
Shorts Competition |
- From Cherry English. Canada. Director: Jeff Barnaby
(Mik'maq)
- Goodnight
Irene. US. Director: Sterlin
Harjo (Creek Nation/Seminole Nation)
- Natchiliagniaqtuguk Aapagalu/Seal Hunting with Dad.
US. Director: Andrew Okpeaha Maclean (Inupiaq)
- Plains Empty. Australia. Director: Beck Cole
(Warramungu Nation)
- Pura Lengua (All Tongue). US. Director: Aurora
Guerrero
- Tama Tu. New Zealand. Director: Taika
Waititi (Te Whanau a Apanui)
|
|
Special Screenings |
|
The Sundance Institute's Native American Initiative developed
five events in this year's Native Forum. In the invitational
Filmmakers' Workshop, January 24 - 28, four filmmakers and
their projects were selected to attend the festival and
participate in a series of one-on-one professional meetings:
Nanobah Becker
(Navajo), Na'alehu Anthony (Native Hawaiian), Dustinn
Craig (White Mountain Apache and Navajo) and Xicana
filmmaker Aurora Guerrero.
Two panel discussions included "Finding the Funding
Workshop" which brought in representatives from Creative
Capital Foundation, National Video Resources, ITVS (US public
television), Sundance Documentary Fund and others to share
insights into how to make presentations that stand out and
their own application processes. The panel "Writing
the Land" focused discussion on how the land is an
integral part of the texture of works and the ways that
people, place and story were interwoven in specific works
from indigenous regions of Australia, US and China. Two
lively networking gatherings brought Native Forum participants
and their supporters and potential backers together.
7/31/05 |

2004 Sundance Film Festival, held January 15 - 25 in Park
City and Salt Lake City, Utah, announces its Native Forum selections
of Native American, Aboriginal Australian and Maori works:
The Opening Night of the Sundance Film Festival in Salt Lake
City featured Chris Eyre's Edge
of America, starring James McDaniel, Irene Bedard, with
Tim Daly and Wes Studi. In this fiction based on a true story,
a teacher at the Three Nations Reservation high school agrees
to coach the girls basketball team. As John Cooper has written,
"Chris Eyre is a clear, original voice in American cinema.
In Edge of America he ventures into the heartland and returns
with a tale that tugs at your heartstrings
"
For contact information enter
here.
2/15/04

2003 Sundance Film Festival, held January
16 - 26 in Park City, Utah, announces its Native Forum selections
of Native American, Aboriginal Australian and Maori works:
Other works of interest in the Festival are Whale Rider,
a story of hereditary leadership in Maori tradition, and the issue
arising when a young woman best qualifies for what is customarily
a male right and duty (2002, Director: Nikki Caro) and The
Passion of Maria Elena (2002, Director: Mercedes Moncada)
a documentary in which a mother seeks justice for the death of
her son from the Mexican and then Raramuri Indian authorities.
For contact information enter
here.
1/16/03

Sundance Film Festival
January 10 - 22, 2002, Park City, Utah
On November 30th, 2001, the Sundance Institute announced its 2002
festival line-up. The Native Forum section includes: At
This Time (USA) directed by Shawna Shandiin Sunrise;
Caminantes (Spain) about the Zapatistas' march in Mexico,
directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa; Christmas
at Wapos Bay (Canada) directed by Dennis Jackson;
Chrysalis (USA) by Gabriel Shaw; Contact
the People (Canada) directed by Garry Oker; Miss 501
(Canada) directed by Jules Karatechamp; The People Dance
(Canada) directed by Dana Claxton; Red Buffalo Skydive
(Canada) by Judith Norris; Retrace
(Canada) directed by Darlene
Naponse; Running on Indian Time (USA) directed
by Duane Allen Humeyestewa; and Yada
Yada (USA) directed by Bennie
Klain. Other films included in the Native Forum this year
from/about indigenous peoples outside of the Americas are:
Hotere (New Zealand) directed by Merata Mita; One
Night the Moon (Australia) directed by Rachel Perkins;
and The Hill (New Zealand) directed by Tainui Stephens.
Native films to showcase in other sections are: The
Business of Fancy Dancing directed by Sherman Alexie
in the American Spectrum category and Chris
Eyre's Skins
in the Premiere section. The Sundance Film Festival's events will
take place January 10 - 22, 2002 in Park City, Utah.
For contact information, enter
here.
12/10/01

Taos Talking Pictures
Taos Talking Pictures has closed its doors after
nine wonderful and meaningful years, Interim Executive Director
Glen Dickerson has announced. The Taos Mountain Award was
given annually by Taos Talking Picture Festival to recognize the
lifetime achievements of an outstanding Native film professional.
The most recent had been awarded in April 2003 to the Native media
organization Ojo de Agua Comunicación,
in Oaxaca, Mexico. The organization was founded by producers from
Indian communities throughout Oaxaca to produce for Native communities,
develop local television initiatives, and support training and
post production for Native media makers. The Taos Mountain Award
has been given to outstanding Native American film and video professsionals
in Canada and the US--Victor Masayesva, Jr (1995), Sandra Sunrising
Osawa (1996), Alanis Obomsawin
(1997), Loretta Todd (1998), Phil Lucas (1999), and Gary
Farmer (2001), and to Maori filmmaker and actress Merata Mita
(2000). Recognition of Latin American indigenous media organizations
included Ojo de Agua and
the CEFREC and CAIB national
indigenous media organizations in Bolivia (2002).
1/30/04

True West Cinema Festival
The True West Cinema Festival, held August 25 - 28, 2005
in Boise, Idaho, is dedicated to the advancement of independently-produced
feature and short subject films by filmmakers who are either from
the West or whose films center on the landscape and/or spirit
of the region. The 2nd annual festival featured several Native
American works including 5th
World (director: Blackhorse
Lowe) and Trudell
(director: Heather Rae). Water
Flowing Together, a special work-in-progress about New York
City Ballet Principal Dancer Jock Soto (Navajo), was discussed
by Soto and director Gwendolyn Cates.
9/2/05

Video nas Aldeias
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
An Indigenous View: A Retrospective of Video in the Villages,
a retrospective of 45 videos produced by Video in the Villages/Video
nas Aldeias was held April 19 - 25, 2004 during Rio de Janeiros
Indian Week in one of the citys most beautiful cultural
centers. Discussion with the producers following the screenings
and roundtable discussions on Interethnic Communication
and Democratization of Communications focus on issues
facing indigenous producers in Brazil and the role of Native video.
An indigenous production workshop is being held, to produce videos
on the image of Indians in the city, and the impact of Native
videos on the public. An illustrated catalog is available with
essays and information on the history of Video in the Villages
and the emergence in Brazil of indigenous media, and on the videos
and the numerous indigenous producers who have produced them.
For more information on Video in the Villages/Video nas Aldeias
go to www.videonasaldeias.org.br
.
4/19/04

Wairoa Maori Film Festival
The first Wairoa Maori Film Festival, held June 2 - June
4, 2005 at the Gaiety Theatre and Cinema in Wairoa, Aotearoa/New
Zealand
featured an international line up of indigenous films, including
Chris Eyre's A
Thousand Roads and a reprise of the 1st National Geographic
All Roads Film Festival. Four fillms were recommended for special
inclusion in the 2005 All Roads festival.
Festival judges were Cliff Curtis, Merata Mita, and Tania Cotter,
moderated by Leo Koziol. The award-winning works:
- Festival Prize: Pear
Ta Ma 'On Maf/The Land Has Eyes. Director: Vilsoni
Hereniko (Rotuman)
- Best Indigenous Entry: Te Toa Aniwaniwa. Director/producer:
Robert Pouwhare
- Runners-up - Indigenous Entry:
Raven Tales. Directors: Chris
Kientz and Simon James
Estos Delores Somos.
Director: Roberto Olivares
- Best Long Documentary (Aotearoa): Tuhoe: A History of Resistance.
Director: Robert Pouwhare
- Runners Up - Long Documentary (Aotearoa):
Hikoi Inside Out. Director: Kay Elmes.
Hone Tuwhare: The Return Home. Director/producer: Michelle
McGregor
- Best Short Documentary (Aotearoa): Buy, Bi, Bye Culture.
Director: Mark Sweeney
- Runners Up - Short Documentary:
Passion and Conflict. Director/producer: Tony Burt
Turangawaewae: A Place to Stand. Director: Steven Mahoney.
- Best Dramatic Feature: Whale Rider. Director: Niki
Caro
- Best Dramatic Short (Aotearoa): Two
Cars One Night. Director: Taika
Waititi. Producers: Ainsley Gardiner and Catherine Fitzgerald
- Runners-up - Dramatic Short (Aotearoa):
Kerosene Creek. Director: Michael Bennett
Tama Tu. Director: Taika
Waititi
For more information go to www.manawairroa.com.
7/15/05

Weeneebeg Aboriginal Film and Video Festival
Coming soon!

Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival
(formerly the Winnipeg Aboriginal Film
and Video Festival)
The Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival took place November
15 - 18, 2007, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, screening 70 films. On its
first day actor and director Gary
Farmer and other professionals conducted a workshop for young
people in the fundamentals of acting, production, and screenwriting.
The festival award winners were:
- Best Feature Film: Eagle vs. Shark (director:
Taika Waititi)
- Best Feature Documentary: Flight from Darkness (director:
Trevor Grant)
- Best Short Film: The Colony (director: Jeff
Barnaby)
- Best Short Documentary: The Fighting Cholitas
(director: Mariam Jobrani)
- Best Experimental: Wabak (directors: Kevin Papatie
and Gilles Penosway)
- Best Animation: Tainá-Kan,
the Big Star (director: Adriana
Figueiredo)
- Best New Talent: Days Like These (director:
Martin Adams)
For more information, go to www.aboriginalfilmfest.org.
12/5/07

The 4th annual Winnipeg Aboriginal Film & Video Festival
was held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on November17 - 20, 2005, with
screenings, panels and a Filmmaking Bootcamp for Youth. Opening
night featured Johnny Tootall (director: Shirley
Cheechoo), preceded by First Stories: Patrick Ross
(director: Ervin Chartrand (Metis)), with remarks by elder Nelson
James (Ojibwe) and festival director Coleen
Rajotte (Cree/Metis). Closing entertainment included fiddle
music and dancing, hoop dancing, a rap performance, and the presentation
of festival awards:
- Best Drama-Feature: Johnny Tootall. Director:
Shirley Cheechoo (Cree)
- Best Drama-Short: A
Thousand Roads. Director: Chris
Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho)
- Best Actress: Alex Rice
(Mohawk) in A Thousand
Roads
- Best Actor: Nathaniel Arcand (Cree) in From Cherry
English
Best Documentary-Feature: Rocks
with Wings. Director: Rick
Derby
- Best Documentary-Short: Team Spirit: The Jordin
and Terence Tootoo Story. Director: Ken Malenstyn
- New Talent Award: Ervan Chartrand (Metis) for 504938C
12/07/05

The 3rd annual Winnipeg Aboriginal Film and Video Festival,
November 17 - 19, 2004, presented Native productions, panel discussions,
and media workshops at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba.
Actress Tantoo Cardinal (Métis)
gave the opening night key note address and introduced a new episode
of the series Moccasin Flats. Highlights included the premiere
of Back to Pikangikum, attended by director Coleen
Rajotte (Cree/Métis) and Peter Quill (Ojibwe), the
chief of Pikangikum First Nation. Other films included Deep
Water (director: Shirley
Cheechoo) and I Am Inuk, I Am Alive (directed by 8
Inuit students) and the independent film The King of Zinacatan.
Representatives of the National Film Board and Telefilm Canada
led panels, and a competitive youth pitching forum offered winners
internships and broadcasting opportunities at CBC Television.
For more information, go to www.aboriginalfilmfest.org.
11/30/04

The Winnipeg Aboriginal Film and Video Festival was held
November 8 - 9, 2002 at the University of Winnipeg. Among the
works screened were the new documentaries The Spirit of
Annie Mae by Catherine Anne Martin (Mik'maq) and Is
the Crown at War with Us? by Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki).
For information contact programmer Liz Barron at liz-barron@shaw.ca.
11/18/02

Other Festivals (A-Z)
Warwick Thornton's Green
Bush was screened at the AFI Fest, presented November
3 - 13, 2004, by the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.
9/2/05

In New York, the 15th African Diaspora Film Festival was
held November 23 - December 9, 2007. Among the approximately 100
works screened were several with indigenous themes, including
the US premiere of Gene Boy Came Home (director: Alanis
Obomsawin), a profile of a Wabanaki man and his struggle against
the trauma of military service in the Vietnam War. Two from Australia
included The Tracker (director: Rolf de Heer), a complex
thriller starring David Gulpilil as a professional tracker leading
police as they pursue a wanted man and a documentary about the
actor by Aboriginal director Darlene Johnson, Gulpilil: One
Red Blood. For more information go to www.nyadff.org/
12/09/07
The African Diaspora Film Festival was held November 24
- December 10, 2006, in New York, New York. Two films with indigenous
themes were screened: The Canary Effect, directed by Robin
Davey and Yellow Thunder Woman, and Muxes: Authentic, Intrepid
Seekers of Danger, directed by Alejandra Islas.
3/26/07
The 15th annual African Diaspora Film Festival, held in
New York City, November 25 - December 11, 2005, screened Tales
of Sand and Snow (director: Hyacinthe Combary) in which a
filmmaker from Africa films his encounter with members of a Cree
community in northern Quebec. It also included Roberto Olivares'
documentary on African-Mexican communities on the coast of Oaxaca
and Guerrero.
12/07/05

The 2nd annual Alaska Native Revolution Film Festival
was held in Fairbanks on October 26 - 27, 2007, at the University
of Alaska Fairbanks, hosted by Native Movement and Alaska Community
Action on Toxics. Films selected from Canada, New Zealand, and
the US included:
For more information go to www.nativemovement.org/alaska/filmfest.html
2/18/08

On November 16, 2002 the Alutiiq Film Festival!, sponsored
by the Anchorage Museum of History and Art and the Smithsonian
Arctic Studies Center, screened nine recent documentaries on Alutiiq
and Sugpiaq life made with much community participation. The day-long
event was shown in connection with the exhibition "Looking Both
Ways: Heritage and identity of the Alutiiq People."
11/18/02

The Native American Student Association of Rice University organized
an American Indian Film Festival at the American Indian
Genocide Museum in Houston, focused on the past and present struggle
of American Indian peoples. The festival, held June 17-18, 2005,
included Black Cloud
(director: Rick Schroder),
introduced by lead actor Russell Means (Lakota) and American
Holocaust: When It's All Over I'll Still Be Indian (director:
Joanelle Romero), introduced by the director.
6/6/05

The 5th annual American Indian Film Festival at Bellevue Community
College took place November 15 - 16, 2007 near Seattle. The
festival opened each day with a ceremony led by Jessy Lucas, followed
by screenings of new Native films. On the opening night, following
a community potluck, the festival presented "Honoring the
Legacy of Phil Lucas," a retrospective of works by the award-winning
Choctaw director, who made more than 100 films. Phil
Lucas founded this festival in 2003 and was a faculty member
at the college until his death in February, 2007. The next evening
featured a keynote address by John
Trudell, following the screening of Trudell
(director: Heather Rae). Other
works, presented by their directors, included The
Duck-In (director: Rachel
Naninaaq Edwardson), Half
of Anything (director: Jonathan
Tomhave), Finding Dawn (director: Christine Welsh),
and works by Native youth, produced by Longhouse Media and Native
Lens.
11/17/07
The American Indian Film Festival at Bellevue Community College
was held April 12 - 14, 2006 in Bellevue, Washington. Actor Gary
Farmer, independent filmmakers Heather
Rae and Phil Lucas, Native
Voices Graduate Program filmmakers Rachael Nez and Alicia Woods
from the University of Washington, Frank Blythehead of Native
American Public Telecommunications, and hip-hop artist Redskin
presented their work at the festival. Special highlights were
a panel discussion, "The Canoe Journey and Native Youth",
and a demonstration of canoe construction. Screenings included
Pulling Together (director: James
Fortier), The Border Crossed Us (director: Rachael
Nez) and Dead Man
with lead Gary Farmer (director:
Jim Jarmusch). The festival opened with a performance by the Snoqualmie
Drum Group. The closing night film was Trudell
(director: Heather Rae).
4/14/06

The 2004 American Indian LA Film and
TV Awards were announced on March 5, 2004 in Hollywood:
- Best Picture Award: Nate and the Colonel
- Best TV Movie or Mini-Series: Dreamkeeper
- Best Lead Actor in a Feature Film: Irene Bedard
in Greasewood Flat and Guy Ray Pocowatchit in Dancing
on the Moon
- Best Supporting Actors in a Feature Film: Irene Bedard
in Tortilla Heaven and Gary
Farmer in The Republic of Love
- Best Lead Actors in TV Movie or Mini-Series: Sheila
Tousey and August Schellenberg in Dreamkeeper
- Best Supporting Actors in TV Movie or Mini-Series: Delanna
Studi and Gil Birmingham in Dreamkeeper
- Best Guest Actors on TV Show: Sheila Tousey in Law
and Order and Graham Green in Mr. Sterling
- The honorary award was given to actor Crystle Lightning for
her portrayal of Iraq war hero Lori Piestewa in the NBC movie
Saving Jessica Lynch.
5/21/04

The 25th Amiens International Film Festival, held November
10 - 20, 2005, in Amiens, France, presented a retrospective of
film and video of Brazilians "on the margins," presenting
an homage to Brazil's Video Nas Aldeias (Video in the Villages),
screening thirteen films made during VNA's history, including
first indigenous works made in Brazil and discussions with several
indigenous filmmakers from the project, and a section on Indians
in the history of Brazilian cinema.
12/30/05

Plastic Warriors, a work about American Indian stereotypes
directed by Amy Tall Chief (Osage), was awarded Best Documentary
Short in the Arlene's Grocery Film Festival, an extensive
event produced by one of New York's best Lower East Side music
clubs.
12/07/05

Director, actress and community activist Joanelle Romero
was given Arpa's Armin T. Wegner Award for her film American
Holocaust: When It's All Over I'll Still Be Indian by the
2005 Arpa International Film Festival in Los Angeles. The
festival, October 3 - 7, is organized by the Arpa Foundation for
Film, Music and Art, which is dedicated to the work of "filmmakers
who explore the issues of Diaspora, exile and multi-culturalism."
11/01/05

The 14th Aspen Shortsfest, held April 6 - 10, 2005 in
Aspen, Colorado, included 66 short films and videos from 25 countries
and awarded cash prizes to winners. An Ellen Certificate for Excellence
and Originality was awarded Taika
Waititi's Tama Tu. Winner of a Special Jury Recognition
was Sterlin Harjo's Goodnight
Irene.
7/15/05

Each year the Augsburg College Native American Film Series
in Minneapolis presents four kinds of film events: "Documentaries
at Augsburg" focusing on current and historical issues in
Indian country, "New Voices in Native Media" honoring
youth and new filmmakers, "Native American Voices" presenting
the current winners from the Fargo Film Festival, and special
events with regional tribal communities. All events are free and
open to the public.
In the 2006-7 season the documentaries screened were:
- American Indian Homelands: Matters of Truth, Honor and
Dignity-Immemorial (director: Barry ZeVan)
- A Tattoo on My Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee 1973
(directors: Charles Abourezk and Brett Lawlor)
- Maria Tallchief (director: Sandy
Osawa)
In April "New Voices" presented short works by directors
Mike Medicine Horse, Tory Mendoza, Amy Tallchief, Missy Whiteman,
and youth media groups New Voices and TVbyGirls; selections from
this programming traveled during the summer to tribal communities.
In May selections from "Native American Voices" in the
7th Fargo Film Festival were screened. Special events included
an "Indigenous Environmental Film Series" in November
2006, "Indigenous Films and Media from South America,"
with indigenous filmmakers Caimi Waiásse and David H. Palmer,
in May and the Summer 2007 tribal touring program of works from
"New Voices."
12/27/07

The Available Light Film Festival, presented in Whitehorse
by the Yukon Film Society (YFS) on March 15 - 18, 2007, featured
The Journals
of Knud Rasmussen (directors: Zacharias
Kunuk and Norman Cohn). In
summer 2007 YFS also presented "Picturing the Yukon: Yukon
Films on Tour" in Dawson City and Whitehorse, with event
screenings in Atlin, Haines Junction and Keno City. Works with
indigenous themes included Land Unlocked (director: Sameer
Singh), The Gravel Magnet (director: Barb Bardie), My
Indian Bum (director: Kerry Barber), and Aydaygooay
(director: Mary Code)
12/27/07
The Available Light Film Festival, presented in Whitehorse
by the Yukon Film Society, February 28 - March 5, 2006, featured
an Artist's Talk with Dennis Allen (Inuvialuit) and screened two
Native documentaries, My Father, My Teacher (director:
Dennis Allen) and Trudell
(director: Heather Rae).
4/4/06

The 57th Berlin Film Festival, February 8 - 18, 2007,
included two films with indigenous directors. Tuli (director:
Aureaeus Solito) dramatically
explores experiences of coming of age in a remote tribal village
in the Philippines was in the Forum section. Eagle vs. Shark
(director: Taika Waititi),
a romantic comedy from New Zealand, was in the Generation section.
Manoomin, The Sacred Food (director: Jack Pettibone Riccobono),
a film on wild rice shot at White Earth Reservation, was included
in the thematic program Eat, Drink, See Movies: Celebrating Culinary
Cinema. In the Generation section Hawaikii
(director: Mike Jonathan)
tells the story of a young Maori girl and her father. For more
information go to www.berlinale.de/en/.
12/27/07

Ang Pagdadalaga
ni Maximo Oliveros/The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros (director:
Auraeus Solito) won three awards
at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival. It won
the 20th Anniversary Teddy Award for Best Feature Film, and two
awards in the Kinderfest Grand Prize competition: the International
Jury Grand Prize and the Kinder (Children's) Jury Second Prize.
The film is the story of a gay 12-year-old in Manila, The Philippines,
where Solito, a member of the Palawan indigenous people, lives.
3/5/06
The 55th Berlin International Film Festival, held in Berlin,
Germany on February 10 - 20, 2005, announces the winners of its
Panorama section, naming two indigenous works for the top prizes.
The prize for Best Short Film was awarded to Green
Bush, directed by Warwick
Thornton (Aboriginal Australian) and a Special Jury Prize
was awarded to Tama Tu, directed by Taika
Waititi (Maori). The Panorama section is dedicated primarily
to art house films, and films directed by their writers. All films
presented are either world premieres or European premieres outside
the country of origin. Panorama not only presents feature films,
it is considered by the Festival as one of its most significant
venues for short films.
2/21/05
The 54th Berlin International Film Festival,
held in Berlin, Germany on February 5 - 15, 2004, announces that
Maori director Taika Waititi is the winner of the Panorama Short
Film Award for Two Cars, One Night. "Panorama"
is a section of the festival dedicated primarily to art house
films and films directed by their writers. All films are presented
as world premieres or European premieres, outside the countries
of origin. Panorama not only shows features and documentaries,
it is considered by the festival as one of its most significant
venues for short films.
2/23/04

On November 27, 2004, the Canadian Aboriginal
Festival and Powwow in Toronto screened three feature films,
followed by "A Conversation with Chris Eyre" moderated
by Andre Morrisseau. Director Chris
Eyre and actor Adam Beach
presented the screenings of Smoke
Signals and A
Thief of Time and Randy
Redroad's The Doe Boy.
12/07/05

Yellow Fella, directed by Ivan
Sen, was an Official Selection at the 2005 Cannes Film
Festival, May 11 - 22, 2005, in France. The 25-minute documentary
is the first indigenous Australian documentary to be selected
for Cannes, and was screened in "Un Certain Regard,"
a section of the festival dedicated to innovative films with personal
vision. The film travels on a 6000 km journey across northern
Australia with Tom E. Lewis, who in 1978 played the lead role
in Fred Schepisi's Australian feature, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith.
6/19/05

Changing Hands: Art without Reservation 2
The Museum of Arts & Design in New York has opened the second
part of its continuing exhibition of contemporary Native North
American art, focusing on art from the West, Northwest and Pacific.
Among the installation pieces is the animated production Raven
Tales: How Raven Stole the Sun (directors: Chris
Kientz and Simon James).
10/3/05

The 22nd Chicago Latino Film Festival, held in Chicago
on April 21 - May 3, 2006, was presented by the International
Latino Cultural Center of Chicago in cooperation with Columbia
College Chicago. Native-directed work included Mirando Hacia
Dentro: La Militarizacíon de Guerrero (director: Carlos
Efrain Perez Rojas) and Sipakapa
No Se Vende (director: Álvaro
Revenga). Other productions on indigenous themes were Muxes:
auténticas, intrépidas buscadoras de peligro
(director: Alejandra Islas); Oaxacan Hoops (director: Yolanda
Cruz); and Tu Sangre (director: Julián Larrea
Arias).
3/26/07

The Festival Petrobras de Cinema Brasileiro de New York, now
called CineFest Petrobras Brasil, was presented in New
York August 6 - 12, and included Maksuara: Twilight of the
Gods (diretor: Neville D'Almeida) an experimental documentary
focused on the noted Brazilian indigenous leader Maksuara.
11/19/07

Cinema Chile, presented in New York, November 9 - 15,
2007, included Üxuf Xipay/El Despojo/The Plunder (director:
Dauno Tõtoro), a documentary examining the resistance of
the Mapuches to exploitation of their lands in the south of Chile
by powerful ranchers and corporations.
11/17/07

CineVegas, June 10 - 18, 2005 selected Blackhorse
Lowe's 5th World
and Sterlin Harjo's Goodnight
Irene. The festival features independent films, documentaries,
and short films from first-time filmmakers to the masters of the
craft.
For more information go to www.cinevegas.com.
7/15/05

Cowichan International Aboriginal
Festival of Film & Art Festival: April 13 - 17, 2011
Duncan, British Columbia
http://aff.cowichan.net/
7/5/11
The Cowichan Aboriginal Film Festival was held April 26-28,
2007 in Duncan, British Columbia. The festival opened with a Coast
Salish Gala Reception, with performances by Butch Dick & the
Unity Drummers, Ray Peter & the Tzinqua Dancers, the Little
Raven Dancers, the Black Owl Singers, and MGirls Unplugged.
Nathaniel Arcand and Dakota House gave two joint workshops, one
on working in film and television, the other on acting and improvisation.
23 workshops were given on all aspects of working in the film
industry. Twelve short films were screened from Brazil, Canada,
and the United States. Participants included Janet Rogers, director
of A Rightful Place and Dorothy Christian, director of
A Spiritual Land Claim. Other films screened included Conversion,
directed by Nanobah Becker;
Wabak, directed by Kevin Papatie and Gilles Penosway; and
Xina Bena/A New Era, directed by Zezinho Yube. For more
information, please go to aff.cowichan.net.
9/13/07
The Cowichan International Film Festival was held March
23 - 25, 2006 in Duncan, British Columbia. The festival opened
with a reception and Coast Salish art exhibition, with performances
by Ray Peter & the Tzinquaw Dancers and the Unity Drummers
& Singers. Simon James (Kwakwaka'wakw)
gave a workshop on legends and culture as a source for narrative
films. Adult workshops were also given on acting, sound, and traditional
arts. Youth workshops were given on acting, production, and costume
design. Youths presented short works in a competitive screening.
Other films screened included:
3/29/06

The twenty-first annual DC International Film Festival
in Washington took place April 19-29, 2007. 70 feature-length
films and 6 short films were screened. The following films by
indigenous directors or with indigenous content were screened:
Eagle vs. Shark, directed by Taika
Waititi; Naming
Number Two, directed by Toa
Fraser; Samoan Wedding, directed by Chris Graham; and
Ten Canoes, directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr.
9/4/06

In 2007 the Argentinian human rights film festival DerHumAlc
was held May 9 - 16 in Buenos Aires and May 29 - 30 in Santiago
del Estero. Among this year's award-winning films was Meu
Primero Contacto/My First Contact (directors: Mari Correa
and Kumare Txicao) which
received Special Mention in the Feature Film category.
Other films included with indigenous stories were Yaipota
Ñande Igüi/Queremos nuestra tierra (director:
Lorena Riposati), concerned with the struggle of a Guarani community
in Argentina against the occupation of their lands by a multinational
corporation, and En la senda de la escuela (director: Lucas
Mouzas) about the development of a school in a Chatin village
in the state of Oaxaca. Other works screened included Mal de
Ojo TV, grassroots news documentaries of the 2006 strike in
Oaxaca and recent resistance to the state's government. Other
works on indigenous themes were Akulliku (directors: G.
Garcia and S. Sandúa) and La zafra (director: Blanca
E. Alvarez Pulido). For more information go to www.derhumalc.org.ar/
12/01/07
The 7th DerHumALC Festival Internacional de Cine y Video de
Derechos Humanos/International Human Rights Film Festival was
held August 10 - 17, 2005, in Santiago del Estero, Argentina.
The festival, a partner with Amnesty International Film Festival,
is concerned with films of human rights issues globally, this
year featuring 102 films and videos. Three films about indigenous
human rights were screened. Rio Arriba (director: Ulises
de la Orgen) was concerned with the historical exploitatiojn of
Aymara communities in northeastern Argentina. Mensaheras de
las Luz, Parteras del Amazonas (director: Evaldo Mocarzel)
focused on indigenous midwifery in the Brazilian Amazon. In The
Real Thing (director Jim Sanders) the focus was on the impact
of U.S. foreign policy on Native farmers in Bolivia. DerHumALC
has joined with a number of other festivals to form the Human
Rights Film Network to further the activities of individual human
rights festivals and to build a stronger support system.
For more information about this festival, go to www.derhumalc.org.ar.
9/2/05

The Indigenous Arts Service Organization (IASO) in partnership
with Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations launched Echoes of Ancient
Art: Inaugural Arts Festival in British Columbia to bring
together traditional indigenous artists and mentors in a regional
event with a focus on youth and community participation. The festival
took place July 13 - 16, 2005 in Tofino, July 27 - 30 in Prince
George, and August 10 - 13, in Kelowna, British Columbia. The
four areas programmed included performing arts (mentor artist/composer
Sandy Scofield) and visual arts (mentor carver Mark Mickey). The
filmmaking/media arts mentor Richard Story is a writer, producer,
director, and educator of Cast Salish and Native Hawaiian descent,
and is based in Toronto. He has served as artistic director of
ImagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival and a 2003 participant
in the National Screen Institute's Aboriginal Cultural Trade Initiative
in 2004. The literary arts mentor Jordan Wheeler (Gordons First
Nation) is of Cree, Ojibwe, Assiniboine and European descent.
He has written fiction, poetry and drama, and for the past 15
years has been writing and story editing for dramatic television.
IASO president is filmmaker and cultural activist Barbara Cranmer.
The organization was founded in 1995 by a group of senior Aboriginal
artists who recognized that First Nations' arts were underrepresented
within the art and cultural worlds of British Columbia, initially
starting a program within the British Columbia Festival of the
Arts, Canada's largest Western multi-arts festival, and continues
now with its own festival series.
For more information contact Melody Charlie, Regional Coordinator,
by phone at 250-726-2507 or e-mail melodycharlie1124@hotmail.com.
2/2/06

The Fargo Film Festival, held in Fargo, North Dakota,
March 7 - 10, 2007, screened 63 films. Winners of the Native American
Voices awards were:
Other fiction and documentary films with Native directors included:
Other works with Native themes were Buffy Saint-Marie: A Multimedia
Life (director: Joan Prowse), Manoomin: The Sacred Food
(director: Jack Riccobono), Silent
Thunder (director: Angelique
Midthunder) and Teachings
of the Tree People (director: Katie
Jennings).
For more information go to www.fargofilmfestival.com.
11/17/07
The Fargo Film Festival, March 2 - 5, 2005, screened four
films in its "Native American Voices" section, including
Reuben Steindorf's Gifts of the Seven Grandfathers and
Missy Whiteman's Taking November and Walking in Shadows.
American Nizhoni (director: John Goheen) was selected for
the Native American Voices Award.
12/07/05

First Nations\First Features: A Showcase of World Indigenous
Film and Media was presented May 12 - 23, 2005 by the National
Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Modern Art, and New
York University. The festival began with a symposium at NMAI,
"Cultural Creativity and Cultural Rights: On and Off Screen".
More than 20 groundbreaking feature-length films, short fictions,
documentary and experimental works by an international group of
outstanding Native directors were screened.
For a complete program information, enter
here.
2/2/06

The First Vision Filmmakers Forum was held on April 27,
2007 at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New
Mexico. The forum was organized by Charmaine Jackson-John (Navajo)
of the New Mexico Film Office. The panel Stories from the
Reel World: A Conversation with Industry Professionals,
featured George Burdeau (Blackfeet), Chris
Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho), Gary
Farmer (Cayuga), Vangie Griego, Barbara Martinez-Jitner, Laura
Milliken (Ojibwe) and Frank Zuniga. The panel Getting
Your Work Seen: Media Networking featured representatives
from National Geographics All Roads Film Project, Latino
Public Broadcasting, ImagineNative Film & Media Arts Festival,
VTape, and Native American Public Telecommunications. Other panels
featured local film industry representatives such as New Mexico
Screen Actors Guild Branch President Tom Schuch and New
Mexico Film Office director Lisa Strout. The day ended with short
film screenings, including
Conversion, Moccasin Flats, and Raven Tales,
and a networking reception with a musical performance by Los Jaraneros
del Valle Norte.
8/24/07

The Flatwater Native Film Festival, held August 6 - 18,
2005, was presented by VisionMaker Video and the Mary Riepma Ross
Media Arts Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. Among the outstanding
documentaries and short films were Indian Country Diaries:
A Seat at the Drum, The Great
American Footrace (directors: Dan
Bigbee and Lily Shangreaux),
Trudell (director: Heather
Rae), Indians for Indians (director: Ava Hamilton),
Homeland: Four Portraits of
Indian Action (director: Roberta
Grossman), Race is the Place (directors: Rick Tejada-Flores
and Ray Telles), Reality Show (director: Lurline
Wailani McGregor) and A
Thousand Roads (director: Chris
Eyre. Producer: NMAI). The festival, co-sponsored by Native
Voice and the Lincoln Journal Star, also presented screenings
at the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) meetings,
held in Lincoln on August 11 - 14.
8/22/05

Forumdoc.bh.2007, the 11th Festival do Filme Documentario
e Etnografico Forum de Antropologia, Cinema e Video, was held
November 23 - December 5, 2007, in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais,
Brazil. The festival screens approximately 24 films in national
and international competition and showcases several curated series
and retrospectives. Included in this year's program were two films
with indigenous content Pirinop, My
First Contact directors: Maria Correa and Karané
Txicão) and Djuungguwan/Speaking to the Future
(director: Trevor Graham). Forumdoc.bh.2006 included a retrospective
of the ethnographic filmmaker Timothy Asch, including his extensive
project filming among the Yanomami of Venezuela in the 1970s.
For more information go to www.filmesdequintal.com.br/2007.
1/12/08
The film festival forumdoc.bh.2004, held December 14 -
23, 2004, in Brazil in the city of Belo Horizonte, featured both
international and national documentaries. This year's events included
a focus on works by indigenous directors working with Video nas
Aldeias/Video in the Villages, screening about 20 productions.
Other festival programs included independent productions on Brazilian
indigenous life. Program introductions and a roundtable discussion,"From
Video IN the Villages to Video FROM the Villages," featured
Divino Tserewahú,
Kumaré Txicão,
Karane Txicão,
Yuwipo Txicão, Isaac
Pinhanta, Valdete Pinhanta, Tania Stolze of the National Ethnological
Museum in Rio de Janeiro, and Vincent Carelli and Mari Corrêa,
coordinators of Video nas Aldeias.
For more information, go to www.usp.br/cinusp/mostras/forum_doc_bh_2003/index.php
(in portuguese)
1/05/05

The inaugural Gallup Inter-Cultural Film Festival was
held in Gallup, New Mexico, September 28 - 30, 2005. Award winning
films were:
- Shandiin Award: A Brief History of Things to Come.
Director: Stanley Shunkamolah
- Audience Choice-Best Overall Film: Where the Highway
Ends. Director: Annabelle Janssen
- Audience Choice-Most Culturally Sensitive Film: Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native Action. Director: Roberta
Grossman
- Honorable Mention: La Provencia de Navajo
- Best Student Film: Siege at Valley High. Produced
by the Film Studies program, Valley High School, Sanders, AZ
12/07/05

The Governor's Cup Film Festival has been launched in
2004 in New Mexico as a statewide competition that spotlights
talented filmmakers from around the state. The project is sponsored
by HDNM Entertainment, LLC, a company committed to the New Mexico
film industry and emerging digital technologies. From among 150
entries, fifteen finalists were selected for the festival. The
Governor's Cup-Second Place was won by Raven Tales, an
animation by Chris Kientz and Simon James.
1/05/05

The 13th Hamptons International Film Festival, held in
Southampton, New York, October 19 - 23, 2005, presented two films
with indigenous subject matter, Roberta
Grossman's Homeland: Four
Portraits of Native Action and The Djarn Djarns,
a short fiction for young people set in Aboriginal Australia.
12/07/05

The 2005 HatcHFest, held October 4 - 9 in Bozeman, Montana,
inaugurated a Native American Showcase this year, featuring Edge
of America (director: Chris
Eyre). Eyre was selected to receive the festival's first Native
Spirit Award. Hatch is an organization dedicated to mentoring
new talent in the arts. The panel discussions, concerned with
both the art and business of filmmaking, included one session
with directors and actors in the Showcase. Among the participating
Native performers was actor/musician Michael Spears and Va:rik,
a dance company from Phoenix that performed a commissioned piece
showcasing the designs of Cochiti Pueblo potter/designer Virgil
Ortiz. Closing night featured a performance by First Nations blues
guitarist George Leach.
12/7/05

The 27th Luis Vuitton Hawaii International Film Festival,
held October 18 - 28, 2007, in Honolulu, featured nearly 200 films.
The Pacific Panorama Award was presented by Pacific Islanders
in Communication to Lahaine: Waves of Change (director:
Eddie Kumae), concerned with the story of the west Maui town once
a center of the sugar industry, and filmed over 8 years as the
industry closed down there. Indigenous works made up "Pacific
Islander Shorts:" Uso/Brother and Rites
of Courage, both directed by Miki Magasiva,
Hawaikii (director: Mike
Jonathan), Taua/War Party and The Speaker,
both directed by Tearapa Katti, Tavake (director:
Paul Stoll) and, from Papua New Guinea, Hands Up! Your Betel
Nut or Your Life. A special initiative of the festival
screens programs on five Hawaiian islands, and "Pacific Islander
Shorts" were selected for screenings on Kaua'i and Moloka'i.
The jury for the Shorts Competition included Janu Cassidy, co-founder
of the Hawai'i Cultural Foundation and Pacifika: New York Hawaiian
Film Festival.
1/28/08
The 25th Louis Vuitton Hawai'i International Film Festival
held October 20 - 30, 2005, in Honolulu and on other islands,
screened more than 200 films, documentaries, shorts and animations,
representing over 40 countries. The "Hawaii Panorama"
featured more than 25 works, including many with Native Hawaiian
themes. The two films selected as "Best of Hawaii Panorama"
were Keepers of the Flame (director: Eddie Kamae), a chronicle
of three women who helped shape the Hawaiian renaissance, which
won the festival's Hawaiian Airlines Audience Choice Award for
Documentary. Wahine O Ke Kai (director: Vince Keala Lucero)
focused on the story of Donna Kahi Kahakui who canoed nearly 200
miles alone to emphasize Hawaiians' responsibility to protect
the ocean. The director received the Academy of Motion Pictures
Arts and Sciences Hawaii Film & Videomaker Award-Honorable
Mention.
For more information go to www.hiff.org.
12/30/05

Events: March 11 - 20, 2005
Performing Heritage: Contemporary Indigenous and Community-Based
Practices, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
The Hemispheric Institute at New York University is a center
for exchange for professionals in performing arts and others who
investigate the relation between performance and politics in the
Americas. It links people from throughout the Americas through
its shared teaching and special features on the Internet through
biennial "encuentros" which bring together participants
in rotating locations in the Americas for discussion, performances
and work teams. Among the indigenous groups featured in its 2003
encuentro, held in New York City, were FOMMA, the Maya women's
theater group in Chiapas, Mexico; Bently Spang from Montana; and
both the Colorado Sisters and the Spiderwoman Theater, performance
groups in New York.
In March 2005 the Institute's 5th encuentro, on "Performing
Heritage: Contemporary Indigenous and Community-Based Practices,"
will be held in Brazil. Approximately 300 participants will present
work and participate together in themed work groups on such topics
as cultural agency, indigenous identities and communication, and
grassroots use of new media technologies. Entries are being solicited
for performance arts, installations, visual arts, video and professional
papers to be presented as part of the events. Applications are
available at http://hemi.nyu.edu/eng/seminar/brazil2005/application_form.html
Submissions include a one-page abstract/description of the work
in English, Spanish or Portuguese.
For more details and to ask questions, write hemi.encuentro@nyu.edu.
8/30/04

Herland Film and Video Festival took place May 3-10, 2007,
in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The program More than Four
Directions Works by Aboriginal Women took place on
May 6. The following films by Aboriginal women were screened at
the festival:
For more information, go to www.herlandfestival.com.
9/6/07
The 2005 Herland Feminist Film and Video Festival, held
in Calgary, Alberta, on May 1 - 13, featured an Aboriginal program,
"More than Four Directions." Works screened were InterTribal
Time (director: Jude Norris), Lessons in Conquest (director:
Ariel Lightningchild), The Hill (director: Dana Claxton),
Love and Numbers (director: Thirza Cuthand), This Bleeding
Place (director: Susan Cormier), Prayer for a Good Day
(director: Zoe Leigh Hopkins), and Storing (director: Darlene
Naponse).
12/07/05

Hoop of Life American Indian Film, Television
and New Media Festival
Spring 2002 in Los Angeles, CA
Organized by Red Crow Creations, Eyapaha Institute and the American
Indian Center at UCLA. A kick-off gala and a day-long symposium
on Native film festivals was held in May 2001 at UCLA. Among the
panelists were Sandy Osawa, Vine Deloria, Jr., Michael Smith,
Paul Apodaca, and Floyd Red Crow Westerman.
10/25/01

HotDocs
Festival: April 28 - May 8, 2011
Toronto, Canada
www.hotdocs.ca/
7/5/11
The 12th Toronto Hot Docs, held April 22 - May 1, 2005
in Toronto, presented 100 documentaries, many national and world
premieres, from 23 countries to local audiences and more than
1500 international industry delegates. Special honors were given
to filmmaker Errol Morris. The festival is one of the world's
"A-List documentary festivals," according to International
Documentary magazine.
Titles on indigenous issues included:
Between Midnight and the Rooster's Crow. Canada. Director:
Nadja Drost.
The Devil's Miner. US and Austria. Directors: Kief Davidson
and Richard Ladkani.
The Lynching of Louie Sam. Canada. Director: David McIlwraith.
World Premiere.
Switch Off. Spain. Director: Mayel Manol. World Premiere.
The Tunguska Project. Canada. Director: Gisèle
Gordon. World Premiere.
The Devil's Miner, about a 14-year-old Indian boy who
works in the notorious silver mine at Cerro Rico in Bolivia, was
awarded the FIPRESCI prize for Best First Documentary.
For more information about 2005 festival go to www.hotdocs.ca/assets/2005_Media_Kit_final.pdf.
For information about the next festival go to www.hotdocs.ca.
8/01/05

2007 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival took
place March 21 - 30 in London and June 14 - 28 in New York. Three
films with indigenous themes were included: Cocalero
(director: Alejandro Landes)
about the election campaign of Evo Morales for the Bolivian presidency;
Everything's Cool (directors: Daniel Gold and Judith Helfand)
about global warming with scenes in Inupiat communities in Alaska;
and El Violin (director: Francisco Vargas), a fiction about
the impact of a military campaign in rural Guerrero, Mexico, starring
musician Don Angel Tavira.
11/17/07
The 2006 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
presented screenings in New York's Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln
Center, June 8 - June 22. Apaga y Vamanos/Switch Off, directed
by Manel Mayol, presented the conflicts between the hydroelectric
company Endesa and Mapuche communities, which have been forced
to relocate from Chile's Ralco Valley, after the damming of the
Bíobío River.
3/26/07

9th Annual Independent Film Festival Boston
Festival: April 27 - May 4, 2011
Boston, Massachusetts
www.iffboston.org/2011/index.php
7/5/11

The 2007 Maui Film Festival took place June 13-17, in
Kahului, Hawaii. Films by indigenous directors from the
Pacific or with indigenous content included Eagle vs. Shark,
directed by Taika Waititi;
Na Kamalei: The Men of
Hula, directed by Lisette
Flanary; and Hawaiian Waterfall Prayer, directed by
John Zak. For more information, please go to www.mauifilmfestival.com.
9/6/07
In Hawai'i the Maui Film Festival, held June 16 - 19 ,
2005, in Wailea, Maui, featured films by Native directors: Vilsoni
Hereniko's The Land
Has Eyes, Heather Rae's
Trudell and Edgy Lee's
The Hawaiians: Reflecting Spirit, and works with indigenous
themes, including Wayne Middleton's Kamakakehua: The Precious
Gift, and Trevor Graham's Hula Girls.
For more information go to www.mauifilmfestival.com.
7/15/05

The Melbourne International Film Festival took place July
25-August 12, 2007, in Melbourne, Australia. This festival screened
works from 50 countries. Films by and/or about indigenous people
were screened from Australia, Bolivia, Canada, and New Zealand.
16 shorts with indigenous content were screened, including Crocodile
Dreaming, directed by Darlene Johnson; The Fighting Cholitas,
directed by Mariam Jobrani; Moon Man, directed by Luke
Jurevicious and Toby Quarmby; Nanna, directed by Warwick
Thornton, and Run, directed by Mark Albiston. Features
included Eagle vs. Shark, directed by Taika
Waititi; The
Journals of Knud Rasmussen, directed by Zacharias
Kunuk and Norman Cohn; September,
directed by Peter Carstairs; and The Waimate Conspiracy,
directed by Stefen Lewis. Eagle vs. Shark was voted one
of the Top 10 Drama Features in the festivals audience poll.
For more information, please go to www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au.
9/7/07
The 54th Melbourne Film Festival selected Tama
Tu (director: Taika Waititi)
to screen on opening night on July 20, 2005, along with the premiere
of Rowan Woods Little Fish. This marks a return to the
Melbourne festival for director Waititi, whose short Two
Cars, One NIght screened on opening night in 2004.
9/2/05

The 15th Message to Man International Documentary, Short and
Animated Film Festival was held June 15 - 22, 2005 in St.
Petersburg, Russia. The program includes an International Competition
and International Debut Competition, and more than 1,000 films
were received from over 57 countries. The Golden Centaur Grand
Prix and US$4,000 for the best festival film was awarded to Fata
Morgana, directed by Anastasia
Lapsui (Nenets) and Markku
Lehmuskallio/Finland. The film has also recently won the Interreligious
Jury Prize at Visions du Reel in Nyon, Switzerland. The film documents
the life and world view of the Chukchi, the indigenous people
of Chukotka, the far northeast corner of Siberia, who are both
coastal hunters of sea mammals and interior reindeer breeders
and herders.
3/15/06

In April 2005 the 7th annual Method Fest Independent Film
Festival in Los Angeles screened Blackhorse
Lowe's 5th World.
The festival, named for the "Stanislavski Method" which
stresses performances based in natural language and gestures,
focuses on "breakout acting performances of emerging stars
and established actors in story-driven independent films."
For more information go to www.methodfest.com.
7/15/05

The Mill Valley Film Festival was held October 4 - 14,
2007, in Mill Valley, California. One of the features screened
was Native produced, directed and acted, Four
Sheets to the Wind (director: Sterlin
Harjo). Two other films with indigenous themes and participants
were Kiviuq (director: John
Houston), and Luna: Spirit of the Whale (director:
Don McBrearty).
11/17/07
The Mill Valley Film Festival, presented by the California
Film Institute, October 6 - 16, 2005, has selected Trudell,
directed by Heather Rae (Cherokee).
Other works with indigenous themes include Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native Action, a profile of artist James
Luna in Race Is the Place, The Devil's Miner,
and Tropic of Cancer.
10/10/05

The Audience Favorites-Short Documentary selected at the
Moondance International Film Festival, held May 12 - 15,
2005, in Boulder, Colorado, was Steve Bilich's Native New Yorkers**.
The festival program included feature and short films, with workshops
focusing on screen and theatrical writing, music, and issues for
women directors. A special Columbine Award is given by the festival
to a filmmaker whose works depict alternatives to violence as
a means to deal with conflict.
For more information go to www.moondancefilmfestival.com.
7/14/05

One Night the Moon,
directed by Rachel Perkins, won the 2002 Moondance International
Film Festival best feature film award.
For more information: www.moondancefilmfestival.com
Related content on this site: 2002
At the Movies
10/7/03

The 2007 Mount Shasta International Film Festival, held
October 12 - 14 in Mount Shasta, California, included two films
with indigenous themes: Nā
Kamalei: The Men of Hula (director: Lisette
Flanary), a documentary about master Robert Cazimero's hula
school for men and Ten Canoes (directors: Rold de Heer
and Peter Djigirr), a feature from Australia with an all-Aboriginal
cast that honors traditional Aboriginal story structure.
11/17/07
The 2006 Mount Shasta International Film Festival took
place October 12 - 14, in Mount Shasta, California. Documentary
screenings included Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native Action, directed by Roberta
Grossman.
3/26/07
The Mount Shasta International Film Festival, held October
7 - 9, 2005, in Mount Shasta and Weed, California, screened about
25 features and award-winning documentaries, including Return
of Navajo Boy (director: Jeff
Spitz).
12/30/05

The Native American Film Festival was presented November
4 - 6, 2006 at the in Columbia, South Carolina. Screenings took
place Nickelodeon Theatre of the Columbia Film Society and the
Columbia Museum of Art. The festival opened with two shorts from
the youth media organization Native Lens, Searching and
Rez Life, followed
by Ben Gluck's Brother Bear 2. Several local filmmakers
participated in the festival, including Sufi Giza, director of
Toledo District: Eco Park, Alicia Woods, director of American
Red & Black of Afro-Native Identity, and Will Goins, producer
of Mending the Circle. Director Charles Thomas presented
Morning Song Way. Other screenings included Bayou Landfall:
the Houma vs. the Hurricanes, directed by Leslye Abbey; Black
Indians: An American Story, directed by Chip Richie; The
New Pequot, directed by Kenneth Simon; Teachings
of the Tree People, directed by Katie
Jennings; and Trespassing,
directed by Carlos DeMenezes. Music videos showcased the songs
of Hovia Edwards, Gilles Sioui, Red Hawk, and XIT.
3/26/07

The Native American Film Series of Augsburg College in
Minneapolis, January - July, 2005, presents monthly screenings
and a summer exhibit of art and video works by Jonathan Thunder
and Missy Whiteman. The films are screened with discussions.
- January 25 - Red Road: Ocangu-sa, the Barry Hambly Story.
Presented by Sandra White Hawk, Director of First Nations Orphan
Association, with a video cam interview with Barry Hambly and
producer Dan Petrusich
- February 22 - Two Films by Dustinn
Craig: I Belong to This
and Home
- March 29 - Honoring Our Voices. With Marlene Helgemo,
Pastor of All Nations Indian Church, Ernest M. Whiteman III,
director of First Nations Film and Video, and Stephanie Autumn
of Reducing Rural Violence
- April 21 - New Voices in Native Media. Works by emerging
Native American filmmakers
- April 28 - 29 - Native American Voices. Selections
from the 6th Annual Fargo International Film Festival: Reservation
War Parties, Mohawk Girls, Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native Action, and Manooman
For more information go to www.augsburg.edu/home/ais/filmseries.
4/5/06

On January 13 - 14, 2006, the 2nd annual Native Film Festival
was held at the Alaska Native Heritage Center (ANHC) in
Anchorage, Alaska. The festival opened with a performance by the
ANHC Dance Group, and films were accompanied by discussions led
by filmmakers or community members. Speakers included Wampanoag
tribal council member Tobias Vanderhoop, for the screening of
Black Indians: An American Story (director: Chip Richie)
and Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, introducing his films Kinna Nigaqtuqtuaq/The
Snaring Madman and Natchiliag'niaqtuguk Aapagalu/Seal Hunting
with Dad;. Also speaking were Joy
Harjo, co-screenwriter of A
Thousand Roads (director: Chris
Eyre), Laurence Goldin, director of This Land Is Ours,
Gilbert Salas, cinematographer of Trudell
(director: Heather Rae), and Brian
Wescott, co-producer of Christmas
in the Clouds (director: Kate
Montgomery).
2/2/06

Native Films at The New School
On October 7, 2005, Beverly Singer
(Tewa and Dine) presented "Native Americans in Film and Video:
Their Perspectives" discussing works by Native directors:
I Belong to This (director: Dustinn
Craig), The Snowbowl
Effect (director: Klee
Benally), and Paatuwaqatsi
(director: Victor Masayesva, Jr.), and a documentary of the IAIA
Summer Film and Television Workshop, produced by the workshop
participants. Beverly Singer, an independent filmmaker and author,
is currently an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Native
American Studies at the University of New Mexico. The program
was co-sponsored by the Association on American Indian Affairs
and the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at The New School
in New York City.
10/10/05

The Native Spirit Festival was held June 4-9, 2007, in
London, England. The festival showed 37 films about indigenous
issues in the Americas, including A
Thousand Roads, directed by Chris
Eyre for National Museum of the American Indian. The films
represented the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Spain, the United
States, and Venezuela. Directors in attendance included Phillip
Cox and Valeria Mapelman, directors of We Are the Indians;
Manuel Mayol, director of Switch Off; Silvia Moreira, director
of The Colombian Indigenous Educative Thought Layout; and
Antonio Rosa, director of Not A Game.
8/30/07

Nepal International Indigenous Film Festival 2011
Festival: April 22 - 25, 2011
Kathmandu, Nepal
http://ifanepal.org.np/
7/5/11

New York Festivals provides international award competitions
in film and video, television, radio, interactive media, and advertising.
In 2005 A Seat at the Table (director: Gary Rhine) was
recognized as a Film and Video Competition Finalist. This
film has screened at the Amnesty International Film Festivals
in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, Artivist Film Festival, Palm
Springs Native American Film Festival, Native Voice Film Festival,
and American Indian Film Festival, and at the Parliament of the
World's Religions in Barcelona, Spain.
12/30/05

In November 2004 the award for Best Social Documentary
was given to Circle of Justice, directed by Brian
J. Francis (Mikmaq), by the New York International Independent
Film and Video Festival. In April 2004 the festival screened
Roderick Pocowachit's feature film Dancing on the Moon.
Presenting six festivals each year in New York, Los Angeles, Miami,
and Las Vegas, the organization bills itself as the largest indie
film festival in the world.
For more information go to www.nyfilmvideo.com.
12/23/04

Festival, directed by Marion Cheeks, has been selected
for the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival
in New York City, September 18 - 27, 2002. The documentary focuses
on the impact of participation in theater on youth in Innu, Inuit
and Settler communities in Labrador.
9/13/02

NextFest: Digital Motion Picture Festival was held October
14 - 18, 2004 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, featuring screenings
and workshops on digital technology with professionals from cinema
and television. The 2004 winners included:
Filmmaker Carol Geddes was on the "Directors Panel"
and was also a panelist discussing "Making Multi-Platform
Work." NextFest is hosted by the Saskatchewan Motion Picture
Association.
For more information go to www.whatsnextfest.ca.
8/22/05

Twenty-four films were presented at the North American First
Nations Film Festival, held November 18 - 28, 2004, in Stuttgart,
Germany and Zurich, Switzerland. The festival features the "best
of" works screened over the past eight years at the American
Indian Film Festival (AIFF) in San Francisco. Organized in cooperation
with AIFF and the Canadian Embassy in Germany, it has received
support from UNESCO, the Linden Museum and James-Byrnes Institute
in Stuttgart, and the North American Native Museum and the Filmpodium
in Zurich. Participants included Michael Smith (Lakota), president
of the American Indian Film Institute (AIFI); actress Alex
Rice (Mohawk); singer Tamara Podemski (Salteaux), and filmmakers
Dan Golding (Quechan) and James Kinistino (Salteaux). Jennifer
Podemski (Saulteaux) led a workshop for teachers, "Native
Americans and First Natons: Cultural Integration of a Minority"
in Stuttgart. The festival was coordinated by Gunter Lange, an
associate with AIFF.
For more information go to www.indianerwoche.de.vu.
1/6/05

The 2007 North American Native Film Festival: Indianer, Inuit
took place March 21-25, 2007, in Stuttgart, Germany. The festival
included a retrospective of 11 works featuring Canadian actress
Tantoo Cardinal. Older selections
in the retrospective included Black Robe, directed by Bruce
Beresford, and Where the Rivers Flow North, directed by
John Craven. New films with performances by Cardinal included
Indian Summer - The Oka Crisis, directed by Gil
Cardinal, and Unnatural & Accidental, directed
by Carl Bessai. 26 other films screened in the festival, including
the short music video La
Cumbia del Mole, directed by Lila
Downs and Johnny Moreno;
the feature Expiration Date, directed by Rick Stevenson;
and the documentary Trespassing,
directed by Carlos DeMenezes.
Festival participants gave several presentations at the Linden
Museum, including a hoop dance performance by Steve LaRance and
Nakotah LaRance. Joy Harjo gave
a musical performance at the citys German-American Center.
9/12/07

The National Screen Institute-Canada has announced that the NSI
Film Exchange, its film festival in Winnipeg, is retiring
after a successful 9-year run and will not be produced in 2008.
The popular SnowScreen evening that traditionally opened the festival-where
animated shorts are projected for the general public on an outdoor
movie screen made of snow-will continue as a hallmark Winnipeg
event, accompanied by an industry reception one of several such
receptions being organized regionally by NSI. In 2008 NSI will
expand its production and training programs with two new Web-based
initiatives.
One of NSI's highly successful programs has been the First
Stories initiative, led by Lisa Meeches, for emerging First
Nations directors to develop 5-minute documentaries. At NSI Film
Exchange, March 1 - 3, 2006, works from First Stories-Manitoba
premiered: Patrick
Ross (director: Ervin
Chartrand), Nganawendaanan
Nde'ing (I Keep Them in My Heart) (director Shannon
Letandre), My
Indian Name (director: Darryl
Nepinak), and Apples
and Indians (director: Lorne
Olsen). On February 28 - March 3, 2007, works from First Stories-Saskatchewan
premiered: Power Center of a Horse (director Cory
Generoux), Lifegivers: Honouring our Elders and Children
(director: Janine Windolph), O Mother Where Art Thou?
(director: Paul John Swiderski) and ata-wîhcasin
(It's Getting Easier) (director Teresa Desnomi). For more
information go to www.nsi-canada.ca.
1/12/08
The 7th annual NSI FilmExchange Canadian Film Festival,
produced by the National Screen Institute, was held March 2- 5,
2005 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Opening Night featured SnowScreen,
with approximately 800 people seeing the latest National Film
Board animated shorts and two world premiere NSI ZeD Drama Prize
films projected on a screen carved from snow. This year's festival
hosted delegates from Australia and New Zealand part of the NSI
Aboriginal Cultural Trade Initiative (ACTI), a program with
the goal of creating film and television co-productions between
First Nations, Maori, and indigenous Australian producers. Outdoor
clothing was provided by Roots Canada to help the delegates prepare
for the chilly temperatures outside. ACTI participant, actor and
producer Cliff Curtis (Maori), star of the international hits
Whale Rider and Once
Were Warriors, served as the festival's keynote speaker.
7/5/05

Photophobia 7 Contemporary Format Film and Video Screening
This open access, open-air event was held in August 11, 2005 at
the Art Gallery of Hamilton in Hamilton, Ontario. Among the works
screened, selected from more than 270 entries, were From Cherry
English (director: Jeff Barnaby) and Little Indians
(director: Gail Maurice).
10/3/05

The 3rd Premios del Publico/People's Awards International
Short Film Festival, held in June 2005 in Quito, Ecuador,
screened 51 short films from ten countries in Europe, Asia and
the Americas. The festival is a project of Quito-based Octaedro
Foundation. The Best Documentary Award was given to Carnaval
Intercultural Kuski Raymi 2005 by Ecuadorian filmmaker Franklin
Quizhpe (Kichwa).
For more information go to www.octaedro.org.ec.
7/14/05

The Provincetown Film Festival, held June 13 - 17, 2007,
in the seaside town of Provincetown, Massachusetts, screened approximately
50 short and feature films. These included two Native directed
features, Miss Navajo
(director: Billy Luther) and
Four Sheets
to the Wind (director: Sterlin
Harjo). A short film, Sovereign Nation/Sovereign Neighbor
(director: Kendall Moore), about the Narragansett tribe of Rhode
Island, was also screened. For more information go to http://ptownfilmfest.bside.com.
2/25/08

Rencontres Cinematographique de Digne-les-Bains
Festival: April 4 - 8, 2011
Digne les Bains, Haute-Provence, France
7/5/11

Reel to Real International Film Festival for Youth Festival: April 9 - 15
Vancouver, British Columbia
http://2011.r2rfestival.org/
7/5/11
In Vancouver, British Columbia, the Reel 2 Real International
Film Festival for Youth took place February 23 - March 2,
2007. Short works by Native directors included Kaka'Win
(director Leah Nelson), Raven Tales: Bald Eagle (directors
Chris Kientz and Caleb Hystad),
and Wapos Bay: Journey Through Fear (director: Melanie
Jackson). A feature with Native themes shows was Luna:
The Way Home (director: Don McBrearty)
11/17/07
Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth was
held March 1 - 10, 2005 in Vancouver. A team of media professionals
and youth selected 35 films from more than 100 submissions. Among
the awards, the National Film Board of Canada prize for Best
Animation was won by Raven
Tales (directors: Chris
Kientz and Simon James).
On March 2, First Nations Day, First Nations films for students
with accompanying media studies workshops included Raven Tales
and Two Winters: Tales
From Above the Earth (director: Carol
Geddes). Other works screened were Inuuvunga, I am Inuk,
I am Alive (producer: Pierre Lapointe) and Team Spirit:
The Jordin and Terence Tootoo Story (producer: Ken Malenstyn).
Weird Sex and Snowshoes, a fresh and funny documentary
about Canadian cinema, had clips and interviews with celebrated
Canadian directors including Zacharias
Kunuk.
For more information about the festival go to www.eciad.bc.ca/r2r.
8/15/05In Portland, Oregon, Reel Music 22, curated
by the Northwest Film Center, January 7 - February 13, 2005, presented
Pepper's Powwow with filmmaker Sandra Osawa. The
screenings were organized in association with the 2005 Portland
Jazz Festival's series of events celebrating the legacy of the
unique Native jazz musician Jim Pepper (1941-1992).
10/24/05

At the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Homeland:
Four Portraits of Native American Action (director: Roberta
Grossman) won both the Award for Documentary Film and
the Audience Award for Documentary Film. Produced by Katahdin
Productions, the feature-length film presents cases of environmental
destruction on Native lands through the eyes of Native activists
Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe), Evon Peter (Gwich'in), Gail Small (Northern
Cheyenne), Mitchell and Rita Capitan (Navajo), and Barry Dana
(Penboscot).
7/15/05

The 2005 Seattle International Film Festival, which screened
nearly 350 films over 25 days, awarded the Special Jury Prize
for Best Documentary to Trudell
(director: Heather Rae).
9/2/05

The 4th annual Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary
Festival was held June 14 - 19, 2005, at the AFI Silver Theatre
and Cultural Center in Silver Springs, Maryland. One Native American
work was screened, Trudell
(director: Heather Rae), about
activist and spoken word artist John
Trudell. Of additional interest was Being Caribou,
a documentary of a 5-month 1000-mile journey following the Porcupine
Caribou herd's migration to their calving grounds in the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
10/10/05

The 5th Sin Fronteras Film Festival was held in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, April 20, 21, and 28, 2007. The festival screens works
about Latin American and indigenous peoples. The 2007 festival
was coordinated by Yvette Morales, of the University of New Mexico's
Student Organization for Latin American Studies. Screenings were
held at Out Ch'Yonda, a studio space in the Barelas neighborhood
south of Downtown, and the Lobo Theater near the university.
Works by indigenous directors included:
Other works with indigenous themes included Buffy Saint
Marie (director: Joan Prowse), Class Clown
(director: Roseanne Archibald), Hombres
y Mujeres Ikoots (director: Guillermo
Monteforte), Popol
Vuh (director: Ana
María Pavez), and Hapunda
(director: Dominique Jonard).
7/17/07

Stories-n-Motion Film Festival was held March 9 - 11,
2006 at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.
Wes Studi (Cherokee) and Gary
Farmer (Cayuga) led workshops on their work. Productions screened
included: In Whose Honor? American Indian Mascots in Sports
(director: Jay Rosenstein), One Dead Indian (director:
Tim Southam) and Trudell
(director: Heather Rae).
3/29/06

The inaugural Stories-n-Motion Film Festival,
organized March 31 - April 2, 2005, at Haskell Indian Nations
University, in Lawrence, Kansas, screened 22 films. Highlights
of the event were three feature films, introduced by their directors:
Black Cloud (director:
Rick Schroder), American
Indian Graffiti (directors: Tvli Jacob and Steve Judd), and
Dancing on the Moon (director: Rod Pocowatchit).
For more information enter
here.
12/30/05

The inaugural Sweet Grass Cinema Native Film Festival,
held September 14 - 16, 2005, at Northern Michigan University
in Marquette, screened feature films including Edge
of America, Black
Cloud, American Indian Graffiti, A
Thousand Roads, and The
Doe Boy. Among the documentaries and fiction shorts programmed
were Goodnight, Irene
(director: Sterlin Harjo), and
Tattoo on My Heart (directors: Charles Abourezk and Brett
Lawlor). The events included dialogues between the filmmakers,
panel discussions, and workshops on Native cinema. Brent Michael
Davids, a noted Mohegan composer, discussed the musical score
of Last of the Mohicans (director: Michael Mann) and offered
an alternative score.
For more information enter
here.
12/30/05

The 2nd SWIFT/Southwest Indian Film Theater festival,
programmed by Tazbah McCullah, was held August 12 - 14, 2005 at
the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The feature film Don't
Call Me Tonto (director: Annie
Frazier Henry) and several short works were screened in cooperation
with the 2005 Native Cinema Showcase in Santa Fe. Directors participating
were Shonie De La Rosa, introducing several of his productions,
and Nanobah Becker, director
of Flat. Other short works
included Yada Yada
(director: Bennie Klain) and
Plastic Warriors (director: Amy Tall Chief).
9/2/05

The Sydney Film Festival, held in Sydney, Australia in
June 2005, has recognized the short film Green
Bush (director: Warwick
Thornton). The Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films that
it received were the Best Film over 15 Minutes, and the coveted
Rouben Mamoulian Award which is selected from the 17 festival
short film finalists by a panel of the festival's guests.
7/31/05

On September 22, 2007, the Tamejavi Cultural Festival: Hands
that Forge History, held in Fresno, California, focuses on
the traditions, struggles, and contributions of the California
Central Valley's immigrants and Native peoples. Films screened
were Hmong, Latino. Mexican and Native American, including the
feature El Violín (director: Francisco Vargas
Quevedo), the story of an old musician from an impoverished community
in Guerrero faced with the encroachment of the Mexican military,
and Native American and indigenous short films from Mexico and
the United States followed by a Q&A with Cedar
Sherbert (Kumeyaay) whose short film Gesture
Down (I Don't Sing) was part of the program.
For more information go to www.tamejavi.org
and click on "Film Series" at the bottom of the screen.
1/06/08

The 4th annual Tribeca Film Festival, held April 19 -
May 1, 2005, featured Trudell
(director: Heather Rae), screened
in association with NMAI's At the Movies cinema series in New
York, with the director, producer, members of the crew, and activist
and poet John Trudell present
to talk about the work with audiences. Goodnight
Irene (director: Sterlin
Harjo) was screened in the "Scenic Overlook" program.
Tribeca All Access Connects, a directors/producers and
scriptwriters workshop held during the festival, invited several
Native American filmmakers to participate, Randy
Redroad, Yvonne Russo, and
Billy Luther. The workshop includes half-hour sessions arranged
with some of the more than 100 film professionals participating.
John Trudell served as a juror in the TAA Creative Promise Awards
documentary competition.
For more information go to www.tribecafilmfestival.org.
12/30/05

The Vancouver International Film Festival, September 27
- October 12, 2007, screened the international premiere of
Lillie and Leander: A Legacy of Violence (director:
Jeffrey Morgan).
1/07/08

The 11th Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival (VIFVF)
was held March 4 - 13, 2005, in Victoria, British Columbia. Short
works screened included:
10. Director: Dana Claxton
Raven Tales.
Directors: Chris Kientz and
Simon James
The Shirt. Director:
Shelley Niro
Two Winters: Tales From
Above the Earth. Director: Carol
Geddes
Raven Tales was selected for VIFVF's Jumpcuts: A Festival
for Young Filmmakers presented in Victoria on July 23 - 24,
2005.
For more information go to www.vifvf.com.
8/22/05

The VisionMaker Film Festival, formerly the Flatwater
Film Festival, was held November 16 - 29, 2007 in Lincoln, Nebraska,
co-sponsored by Native American Public Telecommunications and
the Ross Media Arts Center, in collaboration with Lincoln's Indian
Center, the University of Nebraska, and other venues. The program
featured 12 feature films and 11 short works. Participating filmmakers
included Chris Eyre, Sterlin
Harjo, Bennie Klain, and
J. Carlos Peinado who screened
their recent works. The program was curated by Chris Eyre, Bird
Runningwater, Danny Ladely, and NAPT's Shirley Sneve and Penny
Costello. For more information go to www.nativetelecom.org/festival/
12/07/07

The Winnipeg International Film Festival, June 1 - 9,
2007, featured three films with indigenous subjects. Expiration
Date (director: Rick Stevenson) is a romantic comedy about
Charlie Silvercloud III, as he faces a predicted tragedy on his
25th birthday, the story told by Ned Romero, as an elderly Indian
on the reservation, to a teen trying to leave, played by Nakotah
Larrance. The documentary Dream Makers (director: Susan
Cardinal) addresses the reality of "being Indian" in
the make-believe world of film and TV. Somba Ke: The Money
Place (director: David Henningson) is about the mining of
uranium in northern Canada and its impact on the Sahtu Dene community.
11/17/07

The Women of Color Film and Video Festival, organized
by the Women of Color Research Cluster at the University of California
at Santa Cruz, was held April 23 - 26, 2005. This year's event
was entitled "Disrupting Borders: Seeing Silences and Imagining
Trans-Formations." Among the Native American works screened
were Plastic Warriors (director: Amy Tall Chief) on current
American Indian stereotypes, The Border Crossed (director:
Rachael J. Nez) on the impact on the Tohono O'odham of the Mexican/US
border patrol, and Century of Genocide in the Americas: The
Residential School Experience (director: Rosemary Gibbons).
For more information go to www2.ucsc.edu/woc
10/10/05

In its 10th year, the 2005 Women of Color Film Festival,
organized by the Women of Color Film Project at the University
of California at Berkeley, was screened at the Pacific Film Archives
in Berkeley, March 2 - 6, and at the San Francisco Cinematheque
on March 13. Works selected included Prayer for a Good Day
(director: Zoe Leigh Hopkins).
For more information go to the website for the Pacific Film Archives,
www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/pfa_programs/women_of_color/
10/3/05

Worldfilm Festival
Festival: March 2 - 27, 2011
Tartu, Estonia
www.worldfilm.ee/
7/5/11

On November 14 - 16, 2002 the Ullusintem Yi Skwansixtixtet/Gathering
Our Images opened with the screening of Sherman Alexie's The
Business of Fancy Dancing. The event provided a 3-day
series of professional development workshops for emerging media
artists from the province, was organized by the ULLUS Collective
of independent media artists and IASO/Indigenous Arts Service
Organization and held in Penticton, British Columbia at the En'owkin
Centre. Tina House (Metis) conducted an all-day workshop for youth
in theater and video production. Industry panels included "Cultural
Diversity and Inclusion within the 500 Channel Universe."
Visit the IASO website (www.geocities.com/iaso
1/1.html) or call IASO director Tracey Jack at 250-493-7181.
11/18/02

Rocks with Wings,
directed by Rick Derby, received the HBO Documentary Feature prize
at the 2002 UrbanWorld Film Festival in New York and the
Rigoberta Menchu Tum 2nd Prize for Community Media at Montreal's
First Peoples' Festival. The film follows the story of the championship
Navajo women's basketball team. It has been featured at numerous
festivals including Naal Kid, Native
Cinema Showcase and Taos Talking Pictures.
9/02/02

Zion Independent Film Festival (name changed to Red
Rock Film Festival of Zion Canyon in 2007), held November
10 - 13, at Zion National Park, Springdale, Utah, included four
Native American films in its "Cinema Kokopelli" section.
Spirit Riders (director: James Kleinert) won Best Documentary
Feature. Other Native films screened were 5th
World (director: Larry Blackhorse
Lowe), Healing Our Spirits (directors: Lexie Tom and
Michael Shephard) and Afkeme 1345 (director: Shonie De
La Rosa).
For more information go to www.redrockfilmfestival.com.
12/30/05

In the New York Theaters
Throughout February three feature films--2 documentaries and one
narrative--will have their theatrical releases in New York and
nationally.
- Filmed in Mexico, Blossoms
of Fire (director: Maureen Gosling) portrays Zapotec
women of Juchitan, Oaxaca, famed for their strength and beauty.
Its release in New York was celebrated with a reception and
photographic show from Oaxaca at the Consulate General of Mexico.
It screens February 3 - 9 at Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street.
The film had its world premiere at NMAI's Native American Film
+ Video Festival.
- Christmas
in the Clouds (director: Kate
Montgomery), which opens at Cinema Village on February 17,
played January 20 - 26 in Washington, DC. Set at a Native American
ski lodge, and shot at Robert Redford's Sundance Resort in Utah,
the film offers a refreshingly positive look at contemporary
Native American people. The film premiered at the 2001 Sundance
Film Festival, and has been screened in NMAI's At the Movies
in New York and Native Cinema Showcase in Santa Fe.
- Trudell
(director: Heather Rae) opens
February 24 at the Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th Street, and is
also playing this month on the West Coast. John Trudell has
been fearless in confronting difficult realities that exist
in our history and culture. Trudell was a leader of the American
Indian Movement, and, more recently, one of rock-and-roll's
most distinctive talents. The documentary skillfully weaves
together archival footage, impressionistic scenes, a deeply
affecting soundtrack, and interviews with Kris Kristofferson,
Robert Redford, Jackson Browne, and Gary
Farmer. Trudell premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film
Festival and has screened and won awards at numerous other festivals.
It was screened in a joint presentation by NMAI and the Tribeca
Film Festival in New York and at NMAI's Native Cinema Showcase
in Santa Fe.
2/9/06

** indicates that a short description of the
film can be found in the PDFs of titles screened at the 1995,
1997 and 2000 Native American Film and Video Festivals. To open
the PDF sorted by title, enter
here.
Image credit:
Carlos Efraín Pérez being interviewed by Marcelino
Pinto, 2000 Native American Film and Video Festival - Photograph
by Amalia Cordova, NMAI |
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