Native Eyes Film Showcase
November 12–15, 2009
Arizona State Museum and The University of Arizona Hanson Film Institute, in collaboration with the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, present the 6th annual Native Eyes Film Showcase of award-winning films by and about Native Americans!
View full program flyer
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View KUAT video on Native Eyes (5:12)
Tickets for screenings at Grand Cinemas Crossroads are available at the box office starting November 11th. Grand Cinemas Crossroads is located at 4811 E. Grant Road (Grant & Swan).
Thursday, November 12, 4–6 p.m.
Native Eyes Film Showcase Media Literacy Colloquium, Free
This program takes place in room 164 at UA's James E. Rogers College of Law, 1145 N. Mountain Ave (between Speedway & Helen).
LADONNA HARRIS: INDIAN 101
USA, Work in Progress
Advanced preview of documentary film about Comanche activist LaDonna Harris. Harris led an extensive life of Native political and social activism and is now passing on her traditional cultural and leadership values to a new generation of emerging Indigenous leaders. Director Julianna Brannum is a Rockefeller Foundation award-winning filmmaker.
IN PERSON: Director Julianna Brannum (Comanche) and Special Guest Speaker Heather Whiteman Runs Him-Oleyte (Crow), Joint Lead Counsel, Executive Branch, Apsaalooke Nation/Crow; Moderator: Melissa Tatum, associate director of the University of Arizona's Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program
Friday, November 13, 7 p.m.
Native Eyes Film Showcase, Tickets $5.00
This program takes place at Grand Cinemas Crossroads.
MESKANAHK (MY PATH)
Canada, 2005, 9 min, Dir. Kevin Lee Burton (Swampy Cree)
A young man explores the passage from his childhood on a Cree reserve to his life in the city. In Cree with English subtitles.
CLUB NATIVE
Canada, 2008, 78 min
This multi-award-winning film is a candid and deeply moving look at the pain, confusion, and frustration suffered by many First Nations people as they struggle for the right to belong. Through portraits of Mohawk women, Tracey Deer delineates the human cost of rules about blood quantum that determine the lives and loves of the Kahnawake Mohawk.
Discussant: Dr. Sheilah Nicholas (Hopi), Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural
Studies, University of Arizona
Saturday, November 14, 1–4 p.m.
Native Eyes Film Showcase/Culture Craft Saturday: Pictures in Motion, Free
This program takes place at Arizona State Museum and includes hands-on visual storytelling activities. Teachers may receive 1-3 hours of professional developement credit. View flyer with details.
THIS IS MY LIFE
USA, 4 min, Music Video, Dir Freddie Lane (Seminole), Story by Shamania James (Lummi)
17 year old Shamania shares her connection to her Lummi roots through song.
A SKATE VIDEO
USA, 6 min, Dir. Lowell Susunkewa (Hopi/Tohono O'odham) and Natasha Bailey, participants in the Native Eyes/Native Youth program.
BNK
USA, 6 min, Dir. Israel Delehanty (Tohono O'odham) and Ervin Noriego (Tohono O'odham), participants in the Native Eyes/Native Youth program.
MARCH POINT
USA, 2008, 56 min, Longhouse Media
Three teenagers from the Swinomish Reservation in Washington State are asked to make a film about two oil refineries that are harming the health of the people, the land, water, and traditional way of life. They also investigate ownership of the land as it is on traditional Swinomish territory. As they take on this responsibility, Cody, Nick, and Travis gain a new sense of themselves.
Discussant: Dr. Sheilah Nicholas (Hopi), Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural
Studies, University of Arizona
Satuday, November 14, 7 p.m.
Native Eyes Film Showcase, Tickets $5.00
This program takes place at Grand Cinemas Crossroads.
NECESSITIES OF LIFE (CE QU’IL FAUT POUR VIVRE)
Canada, 2009,102 min, Dir. Benoit Pilon; In French and Inuktitut with English subtitles
Multi-award-winning Canadian entry to the Academy Awards starring Natar Ungalaaq (The Fast Runner) is an emotionally resonant 1950s period drama that shines a light on a people and culture not often seen on screen. After falling victim to tuberculosis, Tivii, an Inuit hunter and family man, is forced to leave his home to receive treatment in Quebec City where he finds hope again when he forges an unlikely friendship with a young boy. A model of delicate emotional restraint, the handsome pic earns its many lump-in-throat moments. - Dennis Harvey, VARIETY
Discussants: Tsianina Lomawaima (Mvskoke Creek) American Indian Studies Program, and Jennie Joe (Navajo), Family & Community Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Arizona
Sunday, November 15, 2 p.m.
Native Eyes Film Showcase, Tickets $5.00
This program takes place at Grand Cinemas Crossroads.
BARKING WATER
USA, 2009, 85 min, Dir. Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek)
With steady and graceful performances, this story takes viewers for a ride in the backseat
of Frankie and Irene’s Indian car, listening to their past and the rhythmic soundtrack that sets the beat for a redemptive road journey. In this sparingly sentimental and achingly poignant film, Harjo claims his place as one of the most truthful and honest voices working in American cinema today. - Excerpt from Sundance Film Festival 2009
Filmmaker and Discussant Biographies
Julianna Brannum (Comanche) is an accomplished independent documentary filmmaker. She received a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation/Tribeca Film Institute for her documentary currently in production, LaDonna Harris: Indian 101. She has received many awards, including a Sundance Institute/Ford Foundation fellowship in 2007, and Best Documentary at the San Diego Film Festival for her film The Creek Runs Red. She produced the American Experience film dealing with the American Indian Movement for PBS.
Jennie R. Joe (Diné), PhD, MPH, is professor in the University of Arizona's Department of Family and Community Medicine and directs the Native American Research and Training Center (NARTC). In addition to her appointment in the College of Medicine, Dr. Joe also teaches in the American Indian Studies graduate program. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and her research interests includes indigenous health, childhood diabetes, cancer and women’s health and is currently a member on the Institute of Medicine’s committee on health disparities. She also serves on the National Advisory Council for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Among one of her more recent projects included coordinating a case study on the Office of Native Medicine in Chinle, Arizona, for the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The resulting video illustrates the successes and challenges that traditional Navajo practitioners (traditional healers) encounter as they collaborate with physicians and other health care providers in the clinical care arena
Tsianina Lomawaima (Mvskoke Creek), Ph.D., is a professior at the University of Arizona's American Indian Studies Program. Her research on the experiences of American Indian alumni of a federal off-reservation boarding school is rooted in the experiences of her father, Curtis Thorpe Carr, who was raised from age 7 at Chilocco Indian Agricultural School in Oklahoma. Interviews with her father and sixty of his contemporaries, plus information from federal policy and archives, appear in They Called it Prairie Light: The Story of Chilocco Indian School (1994, University of Nebraska Press), winner of the 1993 North American Indian Prose Award, and the American Educational Association’s 1995 Critics’ Choice Award. More recent books include “To Remain an Indian”: Lessons for Democracy from a Century of Native American Education (2006, co-authored with Teresa McCarty, Teachers College Press), Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law (2001, University of Oklahoma Press), co-authored with David E. Wilkins (University of Minnesota); and Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Experiences (2000, Heard Museum), co-authored and co-edited with Margaret Archuleta and Brenda Child. Prof. Lomawaima teaches courses on the history of Indian education, contemporary issues in Native America, history and philosophy of Native societies and cultures, and AIS theory and methods. She lectures widely on American Indian history, policy, and education. She has served as exhibit consultant to the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, ALCOA Hall of Native American Cultures; and to the Heard Museum.
Sheilah Nicholas (Hopi) Ph.D., is of the Sunforehead Clan from the Village of Songoopavi on Second Mesa, the Hopi Reservation. She is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education, Language, Reading and Culture (LRC) Program in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies (TLSS). She is also Affiliate Faculty in the American Indian Studies Program (AISP) and Second Language Acquisition Teaching (SLAT). Professor Nicholas’ scholarly work focuses on Indigenous/Hopi language maintenance and revitalization. Her current writing draws on her dissertation, “Becoming ‘Fully’ Hopi: The Role of the Hopi Language in the Contemporary Lives of Hopi Youth—A Hopi Case Study of Language Shift and Vitality.” Her consultant roles with the Hopi Tribe and local Hopi schools have provided professional relationships resulting in the establishment of an on-site Hopi Language Summer Institute for teacher-training offering university courses and transfer to LRC degree programs as well as on-going professional development in language-teaching.
Melissa L. Tatum is Research Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Program at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law. Before coming the UA, she taught at the University of Tulsa for over 13 years. She specializes in tribal jurisdiction and tribal courts. Tatum is a contributing author to the 2005 Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law, and has authored several articles exploring the problems involved in cross-jurisdictional enforcement of protection orders. Tatum served as a judge on the Southwest Intertribal Court of Appeals for six years, and she combined her practical experience with her academic work in her role as general editor of the Mvskoke Law Reporter. That eight volume set contains the court decisions of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation from 1832-present, and as editor, she developed a system for indexing and digesting the court opinions. Tatum has consulted for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation courts, the Navajo Nation Supreme Court, and with task forces in Michigan and New Mexico. She regularly lectures about tribal courts and tribal jurisdiction to attorneys, law enforcement officers, and judges, including at the National Tribal Judicial Center.
Heather Whiteman Runs Him-Oleyte (Crow) serves as Joint Lead Counsel for the Crow Tribe in Montana. She is a member of the Crow Tribe. Her clan is Whistling Waters and she is a Bad War Deeds child. Heather received her Associate of Arts, Fine Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM with emphases in museum studies and two-dimensional design. She attended the University of New Mexico, receiving her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts, magna cum laude, with majors in Studio Art and Art History. She received her law degree from Harvard Law School and is also a graduate of the Pre-Law Summer Institute. Her work for the Crow Tribe includes examination of water rights, enrollment rights, land use, and developing tribal code to provide guidelines for law enforcement and legal reform within the Tribe. Heather makes jewelry and traditional style Crow dolls and enjoys hiking and cooking in her free time. She lives with her husband, Donavon, her son, and her stepson, in southeastern Montana.
For more information on Native media throughout the Americas, visit Native Networks, a project of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian's Film and Video Center
