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FILM: Native Reel Film Festival highlight of fair, powwow
The Seminole Tribal Fair & Powwow is rolling out the patchwork carpet at the Seminole’s world-class Hard Rock Guitar Hotel on Feb. 8-10 in Hollywood, Florida, for a jampacked weekend of Native dance, film, art, music and vendors.
One of the highlights of the annual event is the Native Reel Film Festival, which will be expanding with a networking night on Feb. 8 at the nearby Seminole Okalee Indian Village with films, food, actors and directors.
This year, screenings will include the films “Fancy Dance” with Lily Gladstone, and the comedy, “Hey Viktor,” directed by Cody Lightning, Cree, a former child actor who also appears in the film. The director of “Fancy Dance,” Erica Tremblay, Seneca-Cayuga, will be honored with the inaugural Jaya Award later this month at the 14th annual Athena Film Festival at Barnard College in New York City.
TV: Museums, authors in spotlight
A new series, “Visions of America: All Stories, All People, All Places,” premiered Jan. 24 with the episode, “Voices from the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Stories of First Americans,” featuring Native, tribal and First American stories.
ART: Cherokee artist’s hard-edge works
One of the founders of the hard-edge style of minimal, abstract art, Leon Polk Smith, Cherokee, found his style in New York City.
Now a new exhibit, “Leon Polk Smith: 1940–1961,” shows his unusual, dynamic body of work at Lisson Gallery in New York. The exhibit opened Jan. 11 and runs through Feb. 17. READ MORE — Sandra Hale Schulman Special to ICT
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It took about 15 months for the Grey Willow team to dub 2012’s “The Avengers” from English to the Lakota-Dakota language. The local sound creatives hired 62 Lakota-Dakota language speakers to help translate and record the script.
Grey Willow operates in a 1,800-square-foot studio in Fort Yates, N.D. attributes its audio post-production and ‘voice-over’ success to open communication with clients and creating workflows that meet the specific needs of each project. “When we do that, we become a partner that delivers predictable and consistent results on time and on budget,” said Archambault.
The Standing Rock-based company offers its services in North Dakota and South Dakota, as well as the film industry at large, including post houses, film companies, and video producers. Grey Willow has also collaborated with Lionsgate Films to provide sound for the world-class motion picture and television conglomerate’s “Two Sinners and a Mule” handling all the ADR for actor Chantelle Albers now on streaming platforms. Lionsgate houses the popular franchises of John Wick, The Hunger Games, and Twilight.
Meanwhile, even though all the Lakota dubbing is complete for “The Avengers” 2012 film, a plan exists for some special recordings with Grey Willow. Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, and Ruffalo plan to act in a scene in which they speak their lines in Lakota. Those recordings are scheduled for early February in California. READ MORE — Buffalo’s Fire
The ten episode Showtime/A24 series The Curse, which filmed in Española and Santa Fe in June of 2022, has ended. While it may have left many with more questions than answers, the series has been nothing but intriguing and a boon for experimental film and TV in New Mexico.
The surrealist series set in the Northern New Mexican town of Española takes on niche subjects such as HGTV reality TV and what gentrification might look like in a small town like Española. In the process the series makes key collaborations with local emerging Pueblo, Diné and Kiowa talent.
The Curse courageously (or crazily) delves even deeper into super niche subjects like contemporary Indigenous performance artists practicing their craft. It employs odd retro gimmicks like shooting in an older HD format which creates a surreal indescribable visual experience.
The show is notable for many reasons: the Safdie and Fielder collaboration, the unique choice of Española for location and employing such prestige actors like Oscar-winner Emma Stone and Indigenous acting legend, the Reservation Dog himself, Gary Farmer.
What perhaps is not as noticeable at first glance is the inclusion of Indigenous talent and a sophisticated and refreshing take on Indigenous characters.
A24, the studio that produced the series, was deliberate in making this happen. Producers hired Ashley Browning (Pojoaque/Santa Clara) to serve as a consulting producer, in part, because her lived experience would benefit the show’s depiction of a Pueblo lifestyle in Northern New Mexico. READ MORE
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- Portlanders shut down city council meeting, demanding ceasefire: Following an Indigenous-led sunrise ceremony in solidarity with Palestine, community members attended the Jan. 24 city council meeting to call for a ceasefire in Gaza
- Indigenous cultural burning: The Indigenous Peoples Burning Network is unifying over a dozen tribes in their efforts to reclaim traditional fire practices that have been ignored for hundreds of years
- Birch bark scrolls recovered from auction: Tribes unite to purchase historic Ojibwe scrolls from a New York auction house
- An Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium report says government bureaucracy, ill-suited to address needs of small and remote Alaska villages affected by climate-change, can be revamped
- Dakota leaders urge more education after Treasure Hunt medallion hidden at sacred site
- Sapa Un Jesuit Academy in St. Francis takes a more active, Lakota-based approach to education
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