This film program features SWAIA’s Indian Market Moving Image Classification X winners. Awards for Animation Short, Documentary Short, Experimental Short, Narrative Short, Music Video, and Youth Short, recognize the artist’s dedication and skill in working with new media and innovative art forms while retaining a commitment to traditional creation and technique.

2015 Class X Winners

Animated Short
How the Bear Got a Short Tail, 2015 (9:30 mins)
Director: Elizabeth Day (Leech Lake Ojibwe)
Written by Anna Gibbs, produced by Heid E. Erdich for Wiigwaas Press/Birchbark House. Animated by Jonathan Thunder, 2015. Gaa-ondinang dakawaanowed Makwa or How the Bear Got a Short Tail, narrated by elder Anna Gibbs entirely in Anishinaabemowin, the language of the Ojibwe people, tells a story about gifts of the Creator and gives a lesson in humility.

Documentary Short
Native Evolution, 2015 (14:11 mins)
Director: Kyle Bell (Thlopthlocco Tribal Town)
Since 2008, Native American street artist Steven Grounds has been painting his mind of creativity on walls of buildings and anything else he can get his hands onto. Motivated from the struggle and hardships of his life, Grounds finds the strength to persevere straight from the blood that runs thru him that is his Native American ancestry.

Experimental Short
Undead Faerie Goes Great with IPA, 2015 (3:37 mins)
Co-Directors: Jonathan Thunder (Chippewa/Ojibwe) and Heid. E Erdich (Ojibwe)
A presentation of filmed words, the combination of film and poetry. Featuring a collaborative collage that reveals the distracted human mind at a particular point in history.

Music Video
True Pride Reality, 2013 (4 mins)
Director: Echota Cheyenne Killsnight (Northern Cheyenne/Keetoowah)
TPR is a music video by hip hop MC Melodic Soul featuring In the Woods. The video portrays and explains Native American struggles and contemporary issues involving assimilation. TPR was shot in Big Pine, California and captures the scenery of the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. The song has hard-hitting lyrics and gives a strong voice to young Native Americans.

Narrative Short
Isabelle’s Garden, 2015 (18 mins)
Director: Jeffery Palmer (Kiowa)
Isabelle’s Garden is an uplifting story of a community coming together in reciprocity, through the hopes and dreams of a young Choctaw girl and her garden. A Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation short film challenge to end world poverty and hunger winner.

Youth Short Winners
A Work of Art, 2015 (2 mins)
Director: Casey Hendren (Navajo)
Indian Country, an exhibition of David Bradley’s artwork at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture (MIAC), is the basis of this film. A young girl tours the exhibit and paintings come to life. The film has a cameo appearance from Bradley, who is suffering from ALS. The young filmmaker made this film as a tribute to his immortality.

Relocated Memories, 2015 (3 mins)
Director: Desiree Morsea-Foley (Navajo)
A girl realizes that a bracelet that she is wearing ties back to a family that was relocated from the reservation to an urban setting. Filmed at the MIAC Hogan.

A Modern Indian, 2015 (5 mins)
Director: Forrest Goodluck (Mandan/Hidatsa/Tsimshian)
A fictitious and comical PBS pilot on the quest for the modern Indian seen from a non-Native perspective. Tom Tomerson the correspondent tries to interview MIAC visitors with not much luck.

The Lost Beat, 2015 (4 mins)
Director: Desiree Morsea-Foley (Comanche/Kiowa)
This experimental film begins behind Santa Fe’s Museum Hill, as a Native hiker hears a beat, he begins to follow the drum and it leads him to MIAC. As the hiker gets closer to MIAC, he morphs into traditional Native clothing, confirming his cultural identity.