VisionMaker Film Festival
| Time: | TBA - TBA |
|---|---|
| Location: | Lincoln |
| Contact: | Georgiana Lee glee3@unl.edu 402-472-0497 |
| Other Information: | http://www.nativetelecom.com/festivalThe third biennial VisionMaker Film Festival, titled “Elder Voices, Youth Choices,” will be held Oct. 30-Nov. 5 with screenings at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center and Sheldon Art Museum. The Nebraska State Penitentiary will also host a screening. The VisionMaker Film Festival showcases Native-produced audio, film and video projects that often don’t get the spotlight they deserve in a crowded entertainment market. The theme “Elder Voices, Youth Choices” reflects Natives’ tradition of respect for elders, who pass on cultural knowledge to the youth in their communities. Today, however, youth have more tools to tell their own stories—tools such as cell phones and inexpensive video cameras. The VisionMaker Film Festival features a range of generations, including the story of young Navajo activists bringing renewable energy to their reservations and the story of Native Alaskans fighting for their civil rights in the 1940s. NAPT is also hosting a new short-form video competition for high school students and young adults. The winning videos will be featured online at www.nativetelecom.org/visionmakervideocontest. At the Nebraska State Penitentiary, inmates and visitors will be invited to view Video Letters From Prison, which follows three young Lakota girls from the Pine Ridge Reservation as they form a tentative relationship with their incarcerated father through the exchange of video letters. Producer Milt Lee (Cheyenne River Sioux) will speak about the film with viewers at the prison. Films screening at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center include For The Rights Of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska, Jim Thorpe: The Word's Greatest Athlete, Mohawk Journey, River of Renewal and Power Paths. The Sheldon Art Museum will feature The Last Conquistador. On the NAPT website, viewers can watch Reel Native films, made by Native filmmakers in conjunction with the PBS series We Shall Remain. For more information on these films, go to www.nativetelecom.org/festival. NAPT assembled a curatorial team of nationally recognized media makers to help shape the festival, including Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho), award-winning independent filmmaker, director and producer; N. Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne/Mescalero Apache), associate director of Native American and Indigenous programs for the Sundance Institute; Danny Lee Ladely, director of the Mary Riempa Ross Media Arts Center; Dustin Owl Johnson (Saginaw Chippewa) coordinator for Native American and Indigenous programs for the Sundance Institute; and Shirley K. Sneve (Rosebud Sioux), executive director of NAPT. The VisionMaker Film Festival is a partnership with the Nebraska Humanities Council, Nebraska Arts Council, Lincoln Journal Star, Mary Riempa Ross Media Arts Center and the Sheldon Art Museum. Festival website with trailers, electronic press kits and poster: www.nativetelecom.org/festival Native American Public Telecommunications (NAPT) shares Native stories with the world by supporting the creation, promotion and distribution of Native media. NAPT’s other Fall 2009 offerings include To Brooklyn and Back: A Mohawk Journey, For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska, River of Renewal and Power Paths on Independent Lens. Other NAPT services include AIROS.org, which features streaming and downloadable audio stories, and VisionMaker Video, a distributor of Jim Thorpe, The World’s Greatest Athlete and other documentaries by and about Native Americans. For more information, visit: www.nativetelecom.org. |
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