Native Actors And Filmmakers Visual Storytellers

Biographies of Native Americans who tell their stories in film and on TV will inspire young people in the fields of entertainment and production.

Discover the unique lives and career paths of twelve Native people who are actively working in the complex entertainment industry of motion pictures, television, or digital productions. They work both in front of or behind the camera as either an actor, director, producer, writer, cinematographer, or editor; in some cases, in multiple roles. These biographies include realistic descriptions of what each member of a production team does, as well as advice on what it takes to get started in the entertainment business. A glossary highlights the terminology used in TV/movie production, and a list of resources provides a variety of ways to obtain additional information about the industry.Featured individuals are: Irene Bedard (Inupiat, Yup'ik, Inuit, Cree, Metis) Actor Tantoo Cardinal (Metis, Cree, Dene, Nakota) Actor Christopher Nataanii Cegielski (Dine/Navajo) Writer, Producer, Director Sydney Freeland (Dine/Navajo) Writer, Director Jack Kohlerv (Hupa) Actor, Producer, Director, Educator Kimberly Norris Guerrero (Colville) Actor Michael Horse (Yaqui) Actor Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki) Producer, Director Doreen Manuel (Secwepemc, Ktunaxa) Producer, Director Randy Redroad (Indigenous American) Writer, Director, Editor Ian Skorodin (Choctaw) Writer, Director Gilbert Salas (Indigenous Mexican-American) Cinematographer, Director of Photography.

Cherokee teen Billy Buckhorn had no idea what was in store for him when Osage teen Lisa Lookout and her family showed up on his doorstep. A tribal prophecy, carried by their family for a thousand years, indicates Billy is the long awaited Chosen One, and that he is destined to battle dark ancient forces that are planning to retake control of the Middleworld. As Billy comes to accept his prophesied new role, he must also learn to accept that he and his loved ones are now targets of the most powerful shape-shifting Native American witches and sorcerers on Turtle Island. Known as the Night Seers of the Owl Clan, Billy must use old Indigenous ways, intertwined with new technology, to fight and defeat this evil force. Billy Buckhorn and the Rise of the Night Seers is the second thrilling installment of the Thunder Child Prophecy Series.

Michigan Salvage is the first scholarly collection on celebrated writer Bonnie Jo Campbell, the author of two novels and three short story collections, including National Book Award finalist American Salvage (2009). Her writing captures a diverse and bustling rural America, brimming with complex characters who struggle with addiction, poverty, and land degradation—issues that have become, undeniably, part of the southwestern Michigan landscape that she calls home. The essays in this volume demonstrate many rich ways to approach Campbell’s writing, from historical and cultural overviews to essays examining the class and gender implications of her stories and novels, to teaching essays highlighting how to use her work in the classroom and beyond. Along with each essay, Michigan Salvage also features lesson plans and writing prompts meant to spark discussion and encourage further investigation into these stories and novels. This essential and teachable collection makes plain Campbell’s contributions to contemporary American literature.

The film industry and mainstream popular culture are notorious for promoting stereotypical images of Native Americans: the noble and ignoble savage, the pronoun-challenged sidekick, the ruthless warrior, the female drudge, the princess, the sexualized maiden, the drunk, and others. Over the years, Indigenous filmmakers have both challenged these representations and moved past them, offering their own distinct forms of cinematic expression. Native Americans on Film draws inspiration from the Indigenous film movement, bringing filmmakers into an intertextual conversation with academics from a variety of disciplines. The resulting dialogue opens a myriad of possibilities for engaging students with ongoing debates: What is Indigenous film? Who is an Indigenous filmmaker? What are Native filmmakers saying about Indigenous film and their own work? This thought-provoking text offers theoretical approaches to understanding Native cinema, includes pedagogical strategies for teaching particular films, and validates the different voices, approaches, and worldviews that emerge across the movement.

Smoke Signals is a historical milestone in Native American filmmaking. Released in 1998 and based on a short-story collection by Sherman Alexie, it was the first wide-release feature film written, directed, coproduced, and acted by Native Americans. The most popular Native American film of all time, Smoke Signals is also an innovative work of cinematic storytelling that demands sustained critical attention in its own right. Embedded in Smoke Signals’s universal story of familial loss and renewal are uniquely Indigenous perspectives about political sovereignty, Hollywood’s long history of misrepresentation, and the rise of Indigenous cinema across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Joanna Hearne’s work foregrounds the voices of the filmmakers and performers—in interviews with Alexie and director Chris Eyre, among others—to explore the film’s audiovisual and narrative strategies for speaking to multiple audiences. In particular, Hearne examines the filmmakers’ appropriation of mainstream American popular culture forms to tell a Native story. Focusing in turn on the production and reception of the film and issues of performance, authenticity, social justice, and environmental history within the film’s text and context, this in-depth introduction and analysis expands our understanding and deepens our enjoyment of a Native cinema landmark.

This book highlights the contributions and careers of Native Americans who have carved impressive careers in Hollywood, from the silent film era of the early 1900s to the present, becoming advocates for their heritage. This book explores how the heritage and behind-the-scenes activities of Native American actors and filmmakers helped shape their own movie images. Native artists have impacted movies for more than a century, but until recently their presence had passed largely unrecognized. From the silent era to contemporary movies, this book features leading Native American actors whose voices have reached a broad audience and are part of the larger conversation about the exploitation of underrepresented people in Hollywood. Each chapter highlights Native actors in lead or supporting roles as well as filmmakers whose movies were financed and distributed by Hollywood studios. The text further explores how a "pan-Indian heritage" that applies to all tribes in terms of spirituality, historical trauma, and a version of ceremony and storytelling have shaped these performers' movie identities. It will appeal to a wide range of readers, including fans of Westerns, history buffs of American popular cinema, and students and scholars of Native American studies.

This insightful volume delves into land-based Diné and Dene imaginaries as embodied in stories—oral, literary, and visual. Like the dynamism and kinetic facets of hózhǫ́,* Restoring Relations Through Stories takes us through many landscapes, places, and sites. Renae Watchman introduces the book with an overview of stories that bring Tsé Bitʼaʼí, or Shiprock Peak, the sentinel located in what is currently the state of New Mexico, to life. The book then introduces the dynamic field of Indigenous film through a close analysis of two distinct Diné-directed feature-length films, and ends by introducing Dene literatures. While the Diné (those from the four sacred mountains in Dinétah in the southwestern United States) are not now politically and economically cohesive with the Dene (who are in Denendeh in Canada), they are ancestral and linguistic relatives. In this book, Watchman turns to literary and visual texts to explore how relations are restored through stories, showing how literary linkages from land-based stories affirm Diné and Dene kinship. She explores the power of story to forge ancestral and kinship ties between the Diné and Dene across time and space through re-storying of relations. *A complex Diné worldview and philosophy that cannot be defined with one word in the English language. Hózhǫ́ means to continually strive for harmony, beauty, balance, peace, and happiness, but most importantly the Diné have a right to it.

About the Book Native American Movie Actors honors those courageously infamous, brave unsung Native Americans who reenacted in films and emphasizes their plight to preserve the sacred land of their inheritance while displaying the beauty and grandeur of their homeland. Many Hollywood Western movies used hundreds of local Native American people to create box-office hits. Yet the faces of these Native Americans, their riding skills, and “War Cries,” that contributed to their success never received the proper credit they deserved. E. Dennis King reviews the history of filmmaking with Native American actors as well as the beginning of Western moviemaking in Utah. Through an in-depth look at the history and struggle of the Native American actors, he brings to life the immense talent of their work and the beautiful landscape of their homeland.

Americans are still fascinated by the romantic notion of the "noble savage," yet know little about the real Native peoples of North America. This two-volume work seeks to remedy that by examining stereotypes and celebrating the true cultures of American Indians today. The two-volume American Indians and Popular Culture seeks to help readers understand American Indians by analyzing their relationships with the popular culture of the United States and Canada. Volume 1 covers media, sports, and politics, while Volume 2 covers literature, arts, and resistance. Both volumes focus on stereotypes, detailing how they were created and why they are still allowed to exist. In defining popular culture broadly to include subjects such as print advertising, politics, and science as well as literature, film, and the arts, this work offers a comprehensive guide to the important issues facing Native peoples today. Analyses draw from many disciplines and include many voices, ranging from surveys of movies and discussions of Native authors to first-person accounts from Native perspectives. Among the more intriguing subjects are the casinos that have changed the economic landscape for the tribes involved, the controversy surrounding museum treatments of American Indians, and the methods by which American Indians have fought back against pervasive ethnic stereotyping.