All Films will be shown at the Sedona Creative Life Center, 333 Schnebly Hill Road, Sedona

TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR FOR ALL SHOWS

Tickets are now available online. All tickets - $9.00 (Sedona International Film Festival, Phoenix Fim Society and AAS members - $8), except Sunday at 4:00 PM. Starting on May 29, tickets can also be purchased at the Visitor Center Gift Shop of the Red Rock Ranger District, or call 928-284-4764.

Shows at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm

The Cave
(2009, 11 min.) Helen Haig-Brown (Tsilhqot’in) CANADA
Set in 1961 in the Chilcotin Territory of Western Canada, The Cave recounts the story of a bear hunter who discovers a secret portal to the spirit world. This beautifully crafted film provides a powerful cinematic rendering of an authentic Tsilhqot’in oral story. In the Tsilhqot’in language with English subtitles.

Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey
(2009, 50 min.) Mark Celletti, USA
Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey documents the annual Tribal Journeys of Pacific Northwest Coast Salish people. Indigenous tribes and First Nations from Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska follow their ancestral pathways through the waters of Puget Sound, Inside Passage and the Northwest Coast. Families and youth reconnect with the past and each other. Ancient songs, dances, regalia, ceremonies, and language were almost lost and are coming back.

This 2009 Sundance Film Festival selection is set in Kansas during the early 1900s. A teen-aged Native American boy (newcomer Winter Fox Frank) is taken from his family and forced to attend a distant Indian "training" school to assimilate into White society. When he escapes to return to his family, Sam Franklin (Wes Studi), a bounty hunter of Cherokee descent, is hired to find and return him to the institution. Franklin, a former Indian scout for the U.S. Army, has renounced his Native heritage and has adopted the White Man's way of life, believing it's the only way for Indians to survive. Along the way, a tragic incident spurs Franklin's longtime nemesis, the famous "Indian Fighter" Sheriff Henry McCoy (J. Kenneth Campbell), to pursue both Franklin and the boy.

Visit The Only Good Indian website for the movie trailer.

Sunday, June 6, 2009

Shows at 4:00 pm and 7:00 pm

With values instilled through traditional teachings, Hopi tribal leaders today still follow the visions of leaders before them as each has an aspiration to ensure educational opportunities will continue to exist for the Hopi people. Recognizing education as a high priority the Hopi Tribe knew the need to provide a secure source of funds for education. In November of 2000, the Hopi Tribal council set that vision in motion. Through tribal law and as a form of community investment, the Tribal Council created the fund by allocating the first gift of tribal funds into the perpetually endowed fund: The Hopi Education Endowment Fund (HEEF). The main purposes of the HEEF are to provide perpetual funding for:

• Financial assistance to Hopi students of all ages
• Educational research
• Educational Programs
• Charitable and Educational Activities

The Arizona Archaeological Society, through the Festival of Native American Culture, is pleased to partner with the HEEF in presenting these films.

Sunday, June 6 -- 4:00 PM Show

Lively, family-friendly animations and docu-drama tell Native tales from Canada and the United States.

Raven Tales: Bald Eagle
(2007, 25 min. animation) CANADA
Executive producer: Chris Kientz (Cherokee)

All the kids who are walking along with Eagle one day ask him why he is bald. Eagle tells them as long as they don’t tell anyone else, he will tell them how he came to look like he does. He tells them about the world before the light, the Great Spirit called Eagle and Raven to come and carry him across the world for he wished to see it. They decide to visit Frog, who tells them a story of how the world will one day be filled with light and people. The Great Spirit asks frog to show him where all this will happen, and they all climb on top of Eagle to get there.

The Beginning They Told
(2003, 11 min. Animation) US
Director: Joseph Erb (Cherokee)
Produced for: the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.
In Cherokee with English subtitles.

In the beginning times, the animals living in the sky vault work together to bring about the creation of the earth from a tiny piece of mud.

In the Footsteps of Yellow Woman is about a 13 year-old Navajo filmmaker who finds her own strengths through interviewing her Grandmother about their ancestral history. She imagines what it would be like to be her Great-Great-Great-Grandmother, Yellow Woman, who lived through the Navajo Long Walk (1864 - 1868).

Camille Manybeads Tso (Navajo) learned the art of film making from the volunteer Indigenous youth media literacy collective, “Outta Your Backpack Media.” Camille has worked with OYBMedia since she was 9, and is currently the youngest youth mentor.

Camille researched the time period, wrote a script of re-enactments of her family’s stories, recruited her cousins to help, made costumes, directed, filmed, acted, and edited this piece together. She even sang some of the songs in the soundtrack. The results are a beautiful film of the power of reclaiming oral histories. Performed by the descendants of Yellow Woman and filmed in many of the places where the events took place.

Intertribal Entertainment at the Southern California Indian Center Presents:

The Creative Spirit Native Filmmakers Showcase

The Creative Spirit program was introduced in 2006 with the primary goals of (1) providing employment and training opportunities for Native Americans in the entertainment industry job sector, and (2) developing, producing and marketing film, television and multimedia projects which contribute to a greater understanding of the American Indian experience.

Pow Wow Dreams
(2006, 8 min.) US
Director: Princess Lucaj (Gwich'in)

Powwow Dreams tells the story of four sisters (played by Thirza Defoe, Elena Finney, Princess Lucaj and Delanna Studi) who live life on the road going from powwow to powwow, but face a crisis when one of the sisters decides to leave the group.

Ancestor Eyes
(2006, 19 min.) US
Director & Writer: Kalani Queypo

After getting sick, a young Native American woman, Willa, returns to her mother's home where they both must come to terms with her illness. Willa's mother, who had been a long time 'shut in', begins venturing outside with her camcorder, taping the sunrise and mountains, bringing the outside world in to the bed ridden Willa. Pain turns into a source of inspiration, igniting her mother's gift for storytelling and ultimately paving a path of magical transformations.

The Migration
(2009, 10 min.) US
Director: Sydney Freeland (Navajo)
Writer: Cody Harjo (Seminole, Otoe, Creek, Cherokee)

In a future wracked by global warming, an authoritarian government forces siblings to flee with seeds that may save the world.

“‘The Migration’ is a worst-case scenario,” Harjo said, “but there is always that glimmer of hope. I consider it a futuristic ecological myth.” Director Sydney Freeland liked the idea of history repeating itself. “This could’ve taken place 100 years ago. In the 1800s, what happened to the Natives was an apocalypse.” Among the challenges she faced were making a cool autumn day seem boiling-hot and filming in a one-room shack. “It was an intense shoot,” Freeland said. “Five characters. … a lot of coverage.” She also had trainees shadowing the professionals and learning on the job. She had to find a balance between explaining things to them and getting the work done.

Liminality
(2009, 13 min.) US
Director: James Lujan (Taos Pueblo)
Writer: Migizi Pensoneau (Ponca/Ojibwe)

A young Indian man gets more than he bargained for when he enters a reservation bar looking for help against a gang of vampire bikers.

Writer Migizi Pensoneau has wanted to be a filmmaker since he yearned to remake “The Blob” at age 6. He’s worked on films for a production company, the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Sundance Institute. He also contributed to the fifth season of ABC’s “Alias” as part of a fellowship program. When he learned of this year’s “grindhouse” theme from Creative Spirit’s James Lujan, he pitched Lujan an idea about a wanderer, a bar, bikers and vampires. “He didn’t think I could fit that all in,” Pensoneau said, “so I said, ‘Yeah, I can.’” The result was “Liminality,” which means “the condition of being on a threshold or at the beginning of a process.”

Lujan stepped out from his usual behind-the-scenes role to direct the film. “From a cinematic standpoint the ‘Liminality’ script was a challenge because the entire story is set in one location and there are extended patches of dialog between a few characters.” He made it work by turning the location into another character and making sure viewers didn’t get lost in the back story.

Tuesday, June 8
The Sedona International Film Festival has added the film Reel Injun to coincide with the Festival on Tuesday, June 8, at 4:00 pm and again at 7:00 pm, at the Harkins Sedona Six Theatres. The film is being presented in this one-night-only special engagement as part of its popular Tuesday Cinema Series. Visit the Sedona International Film Festival website for pricing and tickets.

Hollywood has made over 4000 films about Native people; over 100 years of movies defining how Indians are seen by the world. Reel Injun takes an entertaining and insightful look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of North American Natives through the history of cinema. Travelling through the heartland of America, Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond looks at how the myth of “the Injun” has influenced the world’s understanding – and misunderstanding – of Natives.

With candid interviews with directors, writers, actors and activists, including Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch, Robbie Robertson, Sacheen Littlefeather, John Trudell and Russell Means, clips from hundreds of classic and recent films, including Stagecoach, Little Big Man, The Outlaw Josey Wales, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Atanarjuat the Fast Runner, Reel Injun traces the evolution of cinema’s depiction of Native people from the silent film era to today.

The film’s producer, Christina Fonwill, be present for a Q&A session following the film.