Reel Indigenous

We visit with host/producer Paris and director/writer Caleb on this extra edition of Reel Indigenous, looking at the inception of a short film project!

Nominations for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are all under consideration by voters right now, and WHAT!!?? Several Native films have qualified to be considered!Tiger is a live-action documentary short about Dana Tiger and her family of artists, who changed the landscape of North American Indigenous art. Their t-shirts have been seen most recently in Reservation Dogs and The Lowdown (and are available online). A family triumphant and devastated, the Tiger story is deftly told by documentarian Loren Waters, and it's now available to stream on FNX and Criterion.

Richard is a multi-hyphenate: artist, actor, activist, photographer. And he took time to sit down with our hosts to discuss his career, his experience on the set of American Indian Graffiti, and a host of other topics. Quyana to Oklahoma Film Exchange for hosting our retrospective!

In a run-up to our live interview with Richard Ray Whitman, we present...American Indian Graffiti: This Thing Life.A deep dive into the feature by Steven Paul Judd (Dark Winds) and tvli jacob (American Experience). Twenty two years ago, shot in Norman, OK, featuring Kimberley Guerrero (Welcome to Derry) and Yvonne Russo (Vow of Silence: The Assassination of Anna Mae Aquash), this film kicked off a wave of New Native Cinema, focusing on the modern experience of Indigenous folks in the US.

Friend of the pod Adam Piron curated a collection of Native Narratives for this month on the Criterion Collection streaming service, so we celebrate by talking about the list, and making our additions to it!What would you add? Join our Patreon and get a hand-selected movie from Sunrise and a discussion with him about it!

To celebrate the beginning of Native American Heritage Month, we take a look back at the short film that brought so many of our hosts together. Throwing it way back to Sunrise Tippeconnie's Contest, with a cast and crew of today's film luminaries. Our long-winding convo starts with Contest, then next week will feature tvli and Steven Paul Judd's American Indian Graffiti.

Our horror hosts hone in on Will Sampson's performance in Poltergeist II, and wander through the dark and scary haunted houses and woods from there.Happy Halloween!

Lowdown Entertainment hosts a look at Sterlin Harjo's new show on FX: The Lowdown. Shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma, guest David Bizzaro joins us for some local flavor on the locations and background talent.

Another true crime doc set in Indian Country has dropped on Hulu. Inupiat creative James Dommeck Jr. has adapted his Audible original "Midnight Son" now titled Blood & Myth. Our true crime expert Monica discusses the ins and outs of Natives and true crime this week. Is it exploitative? Condescending? And are the iñuktuŋs the cause?

We lost a giant in our community. Graham Greene began his journey on Sept 1. Our hosts reflect on his body of work, and impact he had on each of us.

Short answer: not enough. Long answer, they get it right, every time. Sunrise, Matt, tvli and Angela sort through what exactly Eddington is, and what it all means. But if you make it to the end, let us know what you think about chronological or release order. Remember, keep it reel!

Get ready to get inspired! Our next gen of Native filmmakers are here and showing us how its done. We met filmmakers Sabrina Saleha and Littlebear Sanchez at imagineNative and deadCenter film fests, and just had to have them on to share their experiences as young Indigenous filmmakers going through Sundance, imagineNative, and even Tisch. Let's decolonize filmmaking together!

Pod favorite Jhane Myers joins us as two films she produced make their festival runs: Comanche Academy: A Healing Journey and Free Leonard Peltier Up next, seven projects,including a feature on the Miccosukee Nation, and a look at how we are consuming media these days. We love having Jhane on to get all the news!

Being Native can be complicated. Often we are confronted with challenges from both within our communities and from outside our communities, and this week's episode looks at our filmmaker perspectives on their stories they tell.Amanda Erickson brings true crime producing experience to this beautifully crafted doc about a missing sister, and the struggles of those who remain behind in "She Cried That Day", and our friend Joey Clift joins again for a look at his animated short "POW!" that is taking the film fest circuit by storm. You may even hear host Angela's voice in it!We're always thankful for the quality of talent that deadCenter Film Festival brings to Oklahoma and want to wish them Happy 25th Birthday. We look forward to many more years of great Indigenous content with them.

This week we catch up with deadCenter filmmakers Sabrina Saleha, Loren Waters, and Kyle Kauwika Harris as they screen their films at the world-famous festival, celebrating 25 years!Loren's "Tiger" debuted at Sundance and has been taking the world by storm. Sabrina is multi-talented actor, writer, and director, and can be seen in The Cleaning Lady and Barry. Kyle's debut feature film Reverence was a labor of love for the Oklahoma filmmaker.

This week, we're talking to host Noetta Harjo!

Drowned Land is a feature documentary about efforts to build dams along the Kiamichi River in SE Oklahoma, and efforts by water protectors to stop the resource extraction by flooding a section of the state. Filmmaker Colleen Thurston joins Paris and Angela to talk about her years-long process to creating this beautiful documentary, and how personal it became to her in making it.

Join us as we join the rest of the world raving about the CBC/APTN/Netflix series North of North, starring Anna Lambe. The fashions, the earrings, the romance! We can't wait for Season 2!

Friend of the Pod Mark Williams knows vampire hunters, and now we do, too! If you've seen Sinners, you know who we're talking about. The legendary Choctaw Vampire Hunters have caught the imaginations of the world, and we want to know more.Be sure the crank up the volume for this episode, where Jay Wesley, Mark Patrick, Marco Patrick and Eric Willis join us from the Chahta Immi Cultural Center in Mississippi, and Jaeden Wesley joins us from school in LA to talk about their experiences working with director Ryan Coogler and how their characters became a cultural phenomenon.

tvli, Paris and Angela stan Erica Tremblay and were mighty impressed with Steve Judd and how they wrapped up the third season of Dark Winds.Just give all the awards to Erica, Steve, Zahn, and Deanna already!Come for the Dank Winds, stay for the cats.See you n Toronto!