{"id":98244,"date":"2018-08-28T23:34:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T05:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-native-filmmakers-are-restoring-cinematic-narratives\/"},"modified":"2018-08-28T23:34:28","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T05:34:28","slug":"how-native-filmmakers-are-restoring-cinematic-narratives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/how-native-filmmakers-are-restoring-cinematic-narratives\/","title":{"rendered":"How Native filmmakers are restoring cinematic narratives"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Director
Director Sydney Freeland turned to Kickstarter to complete the funding for her 2014 feature based on reservation life in her own New Mexico hometown.<\/span>Drunktown\u2019s Finest<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ImagineNATIVE \u2014 the world\u2019s largest indigenous film festival \u2014 is underway, and it\u2019s too late to back out now. You\u2019re playing with the big kids: Indigenous filmmakers from across the globe sharing, competing, networking and storytelling.<\/p>\n

Indigenous film has taken a long time to reach mainstream audiences and still has a long way to go. Smoke Signals, the 1998 indie hit written and directed by an all-Native crew, is widely regarded as the first film to cross over. But since then, few mainstream movies by, for and about indigenous people have appeared. Hollywood has largely ignored indigenous narratives.<\/p>\n

Film festivals are often the only way to catch indigenous movies. Occasionally, they feature a big-budget, feature-length \u201cindigenous\u201d film \u2014 the kind with indigenous actors or themes for set dressing but a white protagonist. The Native supporting actor generally exists for the white star to bounce ideas off, learn from and perhaps try to save (with mixed results).<\/p>\n

Festivals with dedicated indigenous programming, like Durango\u2019s and Santa Fe\u2019s, are a better bet for First Nations cinephiles. But indigenous film festivals are the best: Toronto, New Zealand, Finland and Oklahoma for instance. They provide a place for filmmakers to showcase work and bring Native film scholars together.<\/p>\n

Here, you\u2019ll hear critiques of the quintessential American-settler fantasy, such as Last of the Mohicans and its nine American adaptations. \u201cWhere the white man can become a better Indian than the Indian,\u201d says film scholar Theo Van Alst, director of the Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University.<\/p>\n

The gold standard for racist cinematic portrayals of indigenous people remains John Ford\u2019s 1939 Western Stagecoach. Van Alst believes its glowing support of Manifest Destiny and westward expansion was perhaps its most damaging effect. But Stagecoach dehumanized Native people and helped establish cowboy-and-Indian stereotypes, as in what Van Alst calls the \u201cMagic Bullet Theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhite bullets invariably find their mark no matter what angle they are fired from, and they\u2019re almost 100 percent fatal,\u201d says Van Alst. \u201cOn the other hand, it takes (more Indian) shots to hit a white guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The settler fantasy takes us to the 1990 film Dances with Wolves, and ultimately to space, with 2009\u2019s Avatar, where the main character is dropped into the body of a Na\u2019vi to become a \u201cspace Indian.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re an insta-Native: No need to learn the language, culture or, uh, \u2018horsemanship\u2019 \u201d says Van Alst.<\/p>\n

The lack of indigenous films is largely due to a lack of funding. In June 2017, Canada formed the Indigenous Screen Office to support indigenous filmmakers. In the first year, development and production work began on 35 projects directed by indigenous people. In Norway, the International S\u00e1mi Film Institute supports the indigenous people of northern Europe. No such office exists in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at the funding levels (of S\u00e1mi films) and I also look at the Canadian funding base,\u201d says Shirley Sneve, executive director of Vision Maker Media, based in Lincoln, Nebraska. \u201cNew Zealand and Australia support their indigenous filmmakers a lot more than we\u2019re able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In lieu of federal support, Sneve says casino tribes could step in. But for now, sporadic grants and online donations fill the void.<\/p>\n

Take Navajo filmmaker Sydney Freeland\u2019s 2014 feature, Drunktown\u2019s Finest. Despite backing by Robert Redford\u2019s Sundance Institute, Freeland had to seek finishing funds through Kickstarter.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Taika Waititi. A Maori filmmaker from New Zealand, Waititi was an indie darling, with films like Two Cars, One Night and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Then, in 2017, he directed Thor: Ragnarok, netting nearly $853 million. Rumors abound that Waititi has now been tapped to direct a film in the Star Wars franchise.<\/p>\n

Hollywood took a chance on Waititi and tapped into a unique voice with a narrative that was \u201cundiscovered\u201d by non-Native standards. That narrative is garnering interest: Nearly 200 people attended two screenings of indigenous short films put on by Sundance in Albuquerque earlier this year. \u201cI think from the non-indigenous perspective they were really excited to see these different (films),\u201d says Maya Solis-Austin, senior manager of the Sundance Institute\u2019s Native American and indigenous program.<\/p>\n

So why do indigenous filmmakers persist? When the lights come up on your film and you take in that sea of smiling faces, you remember there is no better medium to work in, and no better audience to screen for. It\u2019s just you and a few other people, sitting in a room, telling stories.<\/p>\n

Jason Asenap is a Comanche and Muscogee Creek writer and director based in Albuquerque. This analysis was first published on hcn.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Director Sydney Freeland turned to Kickstarter to complete the funding for her 2014 feature based on reservation life in her own New Mexico hometown.Drunktown\u2019s Finest ImagineNATIVE \u2014 the world\u2019s largest indigenous film festival \u2014 is underway, and it\u2019s too late to back out now. You\u2019re playing with the big kids: Indigenous filmmakers from across the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[561],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-native-american"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98244"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}