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Watch Movies through “Native Eyes”

Arizona State Museum and the Hanson Film Institute, in collaboration with the Film and Video Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, bring to Tucson the fourth installment of the collaborative project Native Eyes Film Showcase. Native Eyes celebrates the creative work of Native American directors, producers, writers, and actors by presenting their high quality work. This year’s showcase includes three short films and two feature length documentaries, including the award winning Mohawk Girls and Miss Navajo (2007 Sundance Film Festival).

“Each of the featured filmmakers has used the cinema as a tool for discovery,” says Vicky Westover, program director for the University of Arizona Hanson Film Institute. The showcase provides an exciting opportunity for Tucsonans to meet the filmmakers, watch their work, and to share in their journeys.” 

“This year’s films deal with issues of cultural identity and focus strongly on women’s roles and challenges. The films provide an avenue for contemporary issues in Native American communities to be presented, explored and discussed with a wider public,” says Lisa Falk, Director of Education Programs at the Arizona State Museum. The films look at experiences within the Navajo and Mohawk nations, and deal with issues such as the impact of Christian missionaries and life on the reservation for young women. Special guests include directors Nanobah Becker (Navajo), Tracey Deer (Mohawk), and William Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo). Speakers include UA alumna Sierra Ornelas (Navajo) of the Film and Video Center at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian.

Native Eyes also features a media literacy workshop for Native teens. Presenters are offering this in collaboration with the Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center and Museum for reservation high school students. The workshop includes films clips and discussion with Tracey Deer and Sierra Ornelas. In addition, Nanobah Becker (Navajo) will speak to University of Arizona Media Arts students and use one of her films as an example to discuss how to take a film from conception through completion. 

The Native Eyes Film Showcase begins on November 7th at 7 p.m. with screenings of the short films Memory in Bones (directed by Gail Maurice, Métis) and By the Rapids (directed by Joseph Lazare, Mohawk), followed by Mohawk Girls (directed by Tracey Deer).

On November 8th at 7 p.m., you can see the short film Conversion (directed by Nanobah Becker) and the feature documentary Miss Navajo (directed by William Luther).

All screenings are free at the Grand Cinemas Crossroads at 4811 East Grant Road (Grant and Swan) in Tucson.

Support for this program provided by The University of Arizona: Hanson Film Institute, School of Media Arts, Arizona State Museum, American Indian Studies, Native Peoples Technical Assistance Office, Native American Student Affairs, Women’s Studies.

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

Wednesday, November 7, 2007, 7:00 p.m.

Memory in Bones

(2005, 3 min.) CANADA
Director: Gail Maurice (Métis)

In a thoughtful, poetic collage the filmmaker affirms her identity as a "strong Indian woman."

By the Rapids

(2005, 4 min.) CANADA
Director: Joseph Lazare (Mohawk)

Mohawk filmmaker Joseph Lazare takes a teen's view in an animation about going from the city to visit relatives on the reserve.

Mohawk Girls

(2005, 63 min.) CANADA
Director: Tracey Deer (Mohawk)
Produced by: Rezolution Pictures and the National Film Board of Canada

With insight, humor and compassion, the filmmaker provides an insider's look at life on the Kahnawake reserve, just across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal. Portraits of three young Mohawk women at the threshold of adulthood reveal their hopes and heartaches, and the challenges of growing up Kanienkeha:ka.

Thursday, November 8, 2007, 7:00 p.m.

Conversion

(2006, 8 min.) US
Producer: Courtney Schmidt
Director: Nanobah Becker (Navajo)
Actors: Charmaine Jackson-John, Simone Frazier, Deidra Castillo
In Navajo with English subtitles.

In a remote corner of the Navajo nation, circa 1950, a visit by Christian missionaries has catastrophic consequences for a family.

Miss Navajo

(2006, 60 min.) US
Director: William Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo)

No ordinary beauty pageant, the Miss Navajo Nation competition requires contestants to answer tough historical questions in the Navajo language and showcase traditional knowledge. The filmmaker, whose mother was crowned Miss Navajo in 1966, goes along on one contender's journey and interviews winners from the past five decades. The event's sacred dimension also emerges—young women are joining a matriarchal continuum that goes back to creation and the first Diné life-giving ancestor, Changing Woman.

Media Literacy Workshops

Open only to invited participants

This is a media literacy workshop for Native teens. We are offering this in collaboration with the Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center and Museum for high school students on the reservation. The workshop will include films clips and discussion with Tracey Deer (Mohawk) about what has influenced her as a filmmaker and with National Museum of American Indian film staff Sierra Ornelas (Navajo) about currents in Native filmmaking today.

About the Visiting Filmmakers

Nanobah Becker (Navajo) is presently in post-production on her second short film, Conversion and her first short film, Flat, is currently screening in festivals. Becker was selected for the Native Forum Filmmaker's Workshop at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival to work on script development for a feature film. She lives in New York City where she is studying for her MFA at the Film Division of Columbia University, specializing in directing. In 2004 she was an NMAI program intern at the Film and Video Center in New York, and taught a summer course on narrative film production for Native American high school students in New Mexico. Becker was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico and received a BA in Anthropology from Brown University. She spent several years working with Native youth both on the Navajo Nation and in Albuquerque at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute before deciding to pursue filmmaking.

"I have always been fascinated by film. Recognizing the lack of media reflecting the experience of Navajo youth, I decided there was ample room for me to explore filmmaking. That got me started. What keeps me going is the elusiveness of it. Filmmaking is a craft that can never be mastered I'm constantly learning with each new project, each new idea."

Independent filmmaker Tracey Deer (Mohawk) divides her time between Mo ntreal, Quebec and Kahnawake, her home reserve. Deer and Neil Diamond (Cree) co-directed the documentary One More River: The Deal That Split the Cree at the production company Rezolution Pictures. One More River won the Best Documentary Award at the 2005 Rendez-vous du cinema québécois. Deer went on to direct a documentary, Mohawk Girls, which follows the coming-of-age of four girls at Kahnawake. It won the Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award at the 2005 ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. One More River and Mohawk Girls have been broadcast throughout Canada on APTN, Aborginal People's Television Network. Deer is currently directing a feature documentary about modern Native identity and the membership debate, which is being co-produced by Rezolution Pictures and the National Film Board of Canada. She is also working with Paul Rickard (Cree) on a two-part documentary on Mohawk immersion schools. Deer has formed the company, Mohawk Princess Productions, to independently produce her own short fictions. She received a BA in film studies, with an emphasis on documentary production from Dartmouth College.

"All of my work to date has dealt with Native issues because that is what I feel passionate about. Our stories and our communities have so much vibrancy to offer and I'm very committed to expressing that on the big and small screen. With all of my work, my ultimate goal is to try to make a difference, even if it is just with one person. I think that film and video, whether it is documentary or fiction, are very powerful mediums, and it is important to respect that enormous influence. I aim to create films that engage and, hopefully, enlighten the audience in some way. It's not always possible, of course, but that's what I strive for whenever I get behind the camera."

William Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo) lives in Los Angeles, California. His debut documentary, Miss Navajo, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and will be broadcast this year on the PBS series Independent Lens. Luther was a 2006 Sundance Institute/Ford Foundation Fellow and participated in the 2006 WGBH Producers Workshop. He was a 2005 participant in Tribeca All Access and received the Roy W. Dean Los Angeles Video Grant in 2005. He has worked on projects of the National Museum of the American Indian Film and Video Center. Luther studied film at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he directed the short film Face Value.

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