Southern Ute Tribal Radio station manager Sheila Nanaeto is interviewed in Durango filmmaker Sean Owens documentary “Tribal Radio.”
Southern Ute Tribal Radio station manager Sheila Nanaeto is interviewed in Durango filmmaker Sean Owens documentary “Tribal Radio.”Courtesy of Sean Owen

The film tells the story of the KSUT radio station located on the Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s reservation in Ignacio.

Through glimpses into the operations of KSUT and its connection to the community, tribal activities and ceremonies, this film shows the value of tribal radio stations throughout the country.

Owen retired in 2005 and moved to Durango where he became a full-time filmmaker. Other documentaries he has made include “Borderlands,” a portrait of Cahuilla Indian performance artist Gerald Clarke, and “Sing Birds,” which opened the Palm Springs Native Film Festival in 2009 and was nominated for best documentary at the Native American Film Festival in San Francisco.

“Sing Birds” focuses on the ancient tradition known as bird songs, ceremonial and social singing among tribes in California and Arizona. It is currently being used in an ongoing exhibition about California Indians at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.

Owen finished “Tribal Radio” in 2017 and is now working on a documentary about Ed Singer, a well-known Navajo painter who lives in Cortez.

If you go

A free screening of “Tribal Radio” will be held at 5:30 p.m. Friday in the Lyceum, Room 120, at the Center for Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College. Afterward, filmmaker Sean Owen and KSUT staff members will answer questions. For more information, call 247-7456 or visit
http://swcenter.fortlewis.edu
.