Native American Filmmakers
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Chris Eyre was born in 1969 in Portland, Oregon, USA. He is known for Smoke Signals (1998), Dark Winds (2022) and Skins (2002).- Actress
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Shirley Cheechoo was born in 1952 in Eastmain, Quebec, Canada. She is an actress and director, known for Backroads (2000), Silent Tears (1997) and Sweet Blood: Live Well with Diabetes (2009). She is married to Blake Debassige. They have one child.- Writer
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Sterlin Harjo is known for Reservation Dogs (2021), Barking Water (2009) and Osiyo, Voices of the Cherokee People (2015).- Director
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Ian Skorodin graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and began his directing career with an award winning feature film, entitled TUSHKA, based on the murder of a Native American activist's family. After premiering at Sundance in 1998, TUSHKA went on to win Best Feature at the Arizona International Film Festival. In 2000, TUSHKA was distributed to DirecTV for domestic television distribution.
Skorodin moved into television and is developing the series JEW IN CHOCTAW COUNTRY. Skorodin also directs an animation series CRAZY IND'N, a stop motion animation television series. CRAZY IND'N went on to screen in England, Finland, and New York. CRAZY IND'N was distributed to Aboriginal People's Television Network in Canada and DishNetwork in the United States.
Skorodin's other work includes two live action film and television projects. WALKING ON TURTLE ISLAND is a privately financed series set in the 1880's starring Tantoo Cardinal and Saginaw Grant. It premiered at the 2009 Ashland International Film Festival and has screened in England, Australia and numerous other festivals. In addition, Skorodin is currently developing TEN LITTLE INDIANS, a feature length movie about Indians in prison.
Skorodin directed The Homestead, a first hand account of the Choctaw survivors of the Trail of Tears and Ramona Band of Cahuilla, a historical documentary based on the Ramona Band of Cahuilla Indians. Both documentaries are distributed widely in educational institutions and tribal organizations.
Skorodin has directed two commercials for Native owned DSL company Mescalero Apache Telecom Inc. These commercials were used to advertise on television, at business conferences and for training facilities. His commercial directing work also includes promotionals for Rock the Vote and Univision.
Skorodin works extensively in the Native American community of Los Angeles. Skorodin operates a video production company, Barcid Productions, and it's non-profit sister company, the Barcid Foundation. The production company has worked closely with the Native American community of Los Angeles providing multimedia production for First Americans in the Arts, Native Voices at the Autry, and the Southern California Indian Center, Inc.
The Barcid Foundation was created to offer more opportunities in the entertainment industry. The foundation formed a film festival, a youth film workshop program, and a scholarship fund. The film festival works closely with the networks and studios to offer more opportunities to Native Americans in entertainment. These opportunities include a sketch comedy showcase for Native American actors sponsored by FOX, a writers group for Native writers provided by the Writers Guild of America and a directors workshop sponsored by CBS. The youth workshop is an intensive week-long production program that teaches Native American youth to produce three to four short films. Skorodin has taught film workshops in Los Angeles, on reservations in Oklahoma, California, Arizona and two reserves in Canada.
Skorodin is a 2009 NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) Fellow and attended the 2008 National Black Programming Consortium's New Media Institute Conference in Washington D.C. In 2002, Skorodin attended the PBS Producer's Conference as part of the Producer's Academy scholar's program. Skorodin won a grant from Native American Public Television and SE-TV in South Carolina to attend the INPUT Television Conference in Rotterdam Holland. Skorodin also attended the 2002 Sundance Producer's conference funded by a Sundance fellowship. Skorodin is the winner of the American Indian Film Institute's Horizon Award, First Americans in the Arts' Trustee Award, and KCET's Community Leadership Award.- Director
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Rodrick Pocowatchit was born on 21 February 1966 in Wichita, Kansas, USA. He is a director and writer, known for The Incredible Brown NDN (2019), The Dead Can't Dance (2010) and Apocalypse ... Then (2021).- Producer
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Shelley Niro is known for The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw (2019), Café Daughter (2023) and Kissed by Lightning (2009).- Actress
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Georgina Lightning brings a long track record of creative experience in the film industry as an actor, producer, director and acting coach on such projects as: Dreamkeepers, Backroads, Johnny Greyeyes, Christmas in the Clouds, Tecumseh, the Oath and Smoke Signals among countless others. Lightning has also guest starred in T.V. episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger and West Wing.
Lightning's directorial debut Older Than America has won over 23 awards to date and is inspired by stories told to her by many of her family members and friends who attended the Indian Boarding schools. Most recently Lightning co-founded Tribal Alliance Productions, a production company committed to producing media that matters told from a native prospective. A long time advocate of Native Indian advancement in the film industry, Lightning also formed Native Media Network, a group dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Native Indian talent.- Writer
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Steven Paul Judd is known for Search for the World's Best Indian Taco (2010), Dark Winds (2022) and Echo (2023).- Director
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Sydney Freeland was born on 29 October 1980 in Gallup, New Mexico, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Drunktown's Finest (2014), Rez Ball and Echo (2023).- Producer
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Bob Hicks is known for The Dawes Commission (2014), A Good Day to Die (2010) and The Trial of Standing Bear (1989).- Producer
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Mohawk filmmaker Tracey Deer's debut feature Beans, a coming-of-age story about a young Mohawk girl's experiences during the Oka Crisis, screened at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to critical acclaim. Tracey was also honored with the prestigious TIFF Emerging Talent Award, presented to her by Ava DuVernay, and chosen as one of Variety's 10 Screenwriters to Watch. The searing performances and poignant storytelling in Beans earned it 2nd Runner Up for the TIFF People's Choice Award. Beans went on to win Best Canadian Film and Most Popular Canadian Narrative (Audience Choice) at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
Beginning her career in documentary, Tracey teamed up with Rezolution on feature documentaries One More River: The Deal that Split the Cree, Mohawk Girls, and Club Native, as well as the documentary series Working it Out Together, seasons I & II. This collaboration continued into fiction television with the critically acclaimed dramedy Mohawk Girls, which ran for five seasons and on which she shared showrunning duties with creative partner Cynthia Knight.
Tracey's work has been honored with two Gemini Awards and numerous awards from multiple film festivals, including Hot Docs. She has worked with the CBC, the National Film Board (NFB), and numerous independent production companies throughout Canada in both documentary and fiction. She was nominated four years in a row for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction in a Comedy Series for Mohawk Girls and honored at TIFF 2016 as a recipient of the Birks Diamond Tribute Award.
Tracey began production on Beans right after returning from LA, where she was a writing co-EP on season 3 of the Netflix/CBC series Anne with an E, working alongside showrunner Moira Walley-Beckett (an Emmy winner for Breaking Bad). Tracey wrote one episode of Anne with an E and co-wrote a second. Her projects in development include Inner City Girl, a feature about aboriginal gang life, with Original Pictures.
Tracey strongly believes in giving back to the community. She chairs the board of directors of Women in View, a non-profit that promotes greater diversity and balance in Canadian media, from the standpoint of employment equity, creative authority and gender representation. In 2017, she was appointed to the board of directors of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. She has mentored emerging talent as leader of the Director Training Program at the imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival. She has also been a guest mentor at the National Screen Institute (NSI) New Indigenous Voices Program and a directing mentor for NSI's new IndigiDocs training course.- Production Manager
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Pamela J. Peters is an Indigenous multimedia documentarian and film consultant in Los Angeles, California. She was born and raised on the Navajo Reservation. Pamela has professionally produced award winning films for the Southern California Indian Center's InterTribal Entertainment multimedia program, co-created film workshops for Native youth, produced PSA's for Fox Studio's American Indian Summer Institute program, and co-hosted "Bringing the Circle Together," a monthly showcase of Indigenous documentaries at the Japanese American National Museum National Center for Preservation of Democracy Tateuchi Forum in Los Angeles, California. Her own work pushes viewers to critically analyze the psychological and historical structures of Native Americans in film, television and mass media.- Dorothy Christian is known for Matriarchal Voices: Stories of Indigenous Women Filmmakers (2014).
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Camille Manybeads Tso is known for In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman (2009), Powerlands (2022) and The TV (2010).- Director
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Nanobah Becker is known for Conversion (2006), Laura Ortman: I Lost My Shadow (2011) and Flat (2005).- Writer
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Marilyn Thomas is an award winning screenwriter and producer. After graduating Vancouver Film School's intensive Writing for Film and Television Program she was awarded the BC Film Story Department Internship for Da Vinci's Inquest. She returned the next year and also had the opportunity to co-write Fleas under the guidance of Chris Haddock.
Her short films have garnered her screenwriting awards, Including "Sxwexwatamsh", "Shi-Shi-Etko", "The Secret Life Of Cassandra Brown" and "JACK", which not only won Best Script, in the Bloodshots 48hr Horror Competition, but also Best Death and the Grand Jury Prize, as judged by Dan O'Bannon, shortly before his passing.
Marilyn's interest in digital media and how it affects storytelling led her to work on two webseries, "The Adventures of Little Jake and Many Skies", accompanied by a digital game, "All in A Hay's Work"; as well as the language preservation series "Our First Voices".
Working with Rival Schools, an innovative digital media company, they created "Brambleberry Tales", a series of interactive e-book experiences based on traditional Indigenous stories. The first two books released were both selected as iTunes editor's choice. The third book is set to release spring 2014.
Marilyn is now anticipating the release of her documentary "Path of Pilgrims", airing May 2014. She has again partnered up with Rival Schools to create an interactive component to accompany the documentary.
Marilyn still strives to tell stories in traditional formats and is developing feature screenplays with different companies. She hopes to get back to her love of horror and action, while continuing to explore alternative ways to enhance the story experience.- Director
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Blackhorse Lowe is a filmmaker from the Navajo Nation. He is a writer, director, producer and editor known for 5th World, Shimasani, Chasing the light and Fukry. His films have played at Sundance, Tribeca and Imaginenative film festival. A recipient of a Re:New Media Award, Lowe is an alumni of the Sundance Institute's NativeLab, Producers Lab and Screenwriters Writers Lab. He is a 2019-2020 Tulsa Artist Fellow.- Producer
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Duane Allen Humeyestewa is known for Echoes from Juniper Canyon (2004), Running on Indian Time (2002) and Dilemma (2009).- Editor
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Ramona Emerson is a Diné writer and filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. She received her degree in Media Arts in 1997 from the University of New Mexico and has worked as a professional videographer, writer and editor for over twenty years. Ramona is a Sundance Native Filmmakers Lab Fellow and a Time/Warner Storyteller Fellow and is a graduate of the 2013 CPB/PBS Producers Academy at WGBH Boston. She is the director of six films: The Backroad, The Last Trek, A Return Home, Opal, Between Worlds and The Mayors of Shiprock. Ramona also just finished the first draft of her novel, Shutter and recently received her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her latest documentary, The Mayors of Shiprock was funded by Vision Maker Media/PBS/CPB and by the newly awarded Beau McNicholas Post Production grant and the Isora Foundation Grant from the NM Film Foundation. Emerson also received a Tribeca All Access grant for a new media/app design for The Shiprock Experience, a companion and community development project being created alongside the documentary. She currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she and her husband/producer, Kelly Byars run their production company Reel Indian Pictures with their son, Max.- Editor
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Norman Patrick Brown is known for The Thin Red Line (1998), Black Day Blue Night (1995) and Independent Lens (1999).- Director
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Carey Tully is known for 3 AM Romance (2015) and Between Friends (2013).- Producer
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Dustinn Craig is known for American Experience (1987), 4-Wheel War Pony (2007) and Freedom Riders (2009).