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VisionMaker Film Festival
Presented by Native American Public Telecommunications and the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center.
With support from the Cooper Foundation, the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Humanities Council.
Media Sponsor: The Lincoln Journal Star, a Lee Enterprises Production
Admission to the films will be at regular Ross prices.
Festival Passes (good for all screenings duing the festival) are $25 each or $15 for Members.
Join us for the VisionMaker Film Festival November 16 through 29, 2007, presented by NAPT in partnership with the Lincoln Indian Center and the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. The VisionMaker Film Festival is featuring a rich mix of documentary, narrative, and short films, curated by award-winning director Chris Eyre (Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe of Oklahoma,) Sundance Institute's Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache,) MRRMAC Executive Director Danny Lee Ladely, NAPT Executive Director Shirley K. Sneve (Rosebud Sioux,) and NAPT Project Coordinator Penny Costello.
The festival is featuring 12 to 15 feature films throughout the two-week schedule. In addition to film screenings, NAPT and MRRMAC is collaborating with the Lincoln Indian Center, Lincoln Public Schools and the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications and Hixson Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts to present workshops, panel discussions and Q&A sessions with filmmakers and humanities scholars for community members, journalism, and filmmaking students. The goal of the festival is to present high quality narrative and documentary films made by and about Native Americans and indigenous people, to introduce audiences to filmmakers and their creative process through lectures and screenings, to enhance pride in culture for young Natives living in Lincoln by presenting positive role models, and provide one-on-one opportunities to meet nationally-recognized filmmakers.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
SPECIAL EVENTS:
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16 - 6:00pm: Reception (by invitation only)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16 - 7:30pm : Filmmakers Bennie Klain & Leighton Peterson will be speaking after the screening of their film WEAVING WORLDS. Coffee with the filmmakers afterwards.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18 - 3:00pm: IMPRINT with filmmaker Chris Eyre.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25 - 3:00pm: FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND with filmmaker Sterlin Harjo.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 - 7:00pm: WATERBUSTER with filmmaker J. Carlos Peinado.
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Cliek here to download a synopses of the Feature Films
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TEN CANOES Directed by Rolf de Heer & Peter Djigirr
Shot in Australia by director Rolf de Heer, a man who covets his older brother’s wife is told an ancient tale of the Ganalbingu people to keep him on the moral path (Subtitled).
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL SITE
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FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND Directed by Sterlin Harjo
After his father’s suicide, Cufe Smallhill leaves his Indian community for Tulsa to start a new life. Directed by Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek).
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EXPIRATION DATE Directed by Rick Stevenson
Charlie Silver Cloud III is convinced that he will meet the same fate of his father and grandfather who were both killed by a milk truck when they turned 25. But then he falls in love.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL SITE
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THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSEN
Directed by Norman Cohn & Zacharias Kunuk
A portrayal of the lives of the last great Inuit shaman, Avva, and his beautiful and headstrong daughter, Apak. Based on the journals of 1920s Danish ethnographer Knud Rasmussen.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL SITE
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Cliek here to download a synopses of the Documentary Films
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WAY OF THE WARRIOR Produced by Patricia Loew
A documentary about the warrior ethic in Native American communities. Its purpose is to explore how Native communities have traditionally viewed their warriors and why, duting the 20th century, Native men and women have volunteered for military service at a rate three times highter than non-Indians.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL SITE
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STANDING SILENT NATION
Directed by Suree Towfighnia
See one family's struggle for economic and tribal sovereignty on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Resourcefulness, resistance, spirituality, love of family, and a sense of humor are values embodied by Alex White Plume (Oglala Lakota), head of the Wacini Ska tiospaye (clan). The prosperity of Alex's 86-member extended family hangs in the balance as he prepares to defend himself in front of a federal judge for growing industrial hemp.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL SITE
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WATERBUSTER Directed by J. Carlos Peinado
Old memories surface when Hidatsa/Mandan filmmaker, J. Carlos Peinado revisits the Upper Missouri River basin in North Dakota where his ancestors once lived. There he investigates the impact of the massive Garrison Dam project, constructed in the 1950’s by the Army Corps of Engineers, which laid waste to a self-sufficient American Indian community, submerging fertile land and displacing his family and the people of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.
CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE OFFICIAL SITE
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WEAVING WORLDS Directed by Bennie Klain
Weaving Worlds highlights Navajo tales of how the west was spun, exploring the personal stories of Navajo weavers and their complex relationship with reservation traders. The film examines the delicate balance between cultural survival, economic independence, and artistic motivation evident in the everyday lives of Navajo weavers.
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POLYNESIAN POWER
Directed by Robert Pennington & Jeremy Spear
Narrated by "The Rock", Polynesian Power chronicles the ascent of Polynesians in American Football and the cultural history that defines these journeys. Profiling two Samoan athletes, Pisa Tinoisamoa and Isaac Sopoaga, Polynesian Power explores America's diverse cultural base and the challenges of chasing dreams
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THE LAST CONQUISTADOR Directed by Cristina Ibarra
This hour-long documentary about the construction and dedication of the largest bronze equestrian statue ever created explores how this nearly five-stories tall controversial monument depicting the Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate stirs anger among Native and Mexican Americans who are opposed to the statue. To them, it is an offensive and profane memorial to white supremacy and genocide.
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SEASONED WITH SPIRIT: RETURN OF THE BUFFALO
There is a movement among native tribes to bring the buffalo back to the Great Plains to "promote cultural enhancement, spiritual revitalization, ecological restoration and economic development." Hosted by Loretta Barrett Oden, a renowned Native-American chef, food historian and lecturer, and proud woman of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, the documentary travels to the buffalo range of Fred Dubray on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota to learn more.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION
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Little Big Films: Short Native Films
ALL SHORTS WILL BE SHOWN TOGETHER AS ONE PROGRAM, LISTED AS SHORTS PROGRAM ON THE SCHEDULE.
NATIVE AMERICAN NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (10 minutes)
Old Red Shirt (the Indian Santa Claus) comes a-calling with his team of flying white buffalo.
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133 SKYWAY (21 minutes)
During his failing health, a homeless man gets his guitar out of hock, relying on a troubled friend and the kindness of a lonely pawn shop employee.
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D.C. NAVAJO (10 minutes)
Money fuels non-political favors but lines pockets for the largest tribe in the nation with a lobbying office stationed in the U.S. capitol.
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GOOD NIGHT IRENE (14 minutes)
Two young men have a life-changing encounter with an elder in the waiting room of an Indian Health Service clinic.
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OSAMA LIKES FRYBREAD (4 minutes)
No need to look further than the Navajo Nation for America’s most wanted terrorist who has taken refuge adjacent to sheep camps in the desert Southwest.
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REZ TOLL ROAD (10 minutes)
A new toll booth system on the Reservation prevents a young man from getting home. The system requires answers to questions instead of money. The young native man struggles to answer these “rez”-based questions to get home. He finally realizes what is truly important – his identity.
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SHARE THE WEALTH (7 minutes)
A homeless Native woman encounters stereotypes and misunderstandings in this ironic parable.
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WAR PONIES (6 minutes)
Oglala Lakota College’s Brandon Ferguson looks at transportation for a modern day warrior.
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THE BASTARD FAIRIES (12 minutes)
Three music videos from The Bastard Fairies with Yellow Thunder Woman.
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NATIVE NEW YORKER (13 minutes)
Filmed with a 1924 hand-crank Cine-Kodak camera, Shaman Trail Scout 'Coyote' takes a journey which transcends time, from Inwood Park (where the island was traded for beads and booze), down a native trail (now 'Broadway'), into lower Manhattan.
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