Helen Hardin Media Gallery (Run Time is 55:30 minutes)

The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) is pleased to present six innovative films made by Southwestern based Native American directors and their teams of writers, producers, editors, and actors. Presented works are multifaceted conceptually and formally. They offer a dynamic collection of film, video, and digital media and involve levels of metaphors and narrative concepts around Tribal contemporary identity, humor, and music. This film program was curated by local Navajo filmmaker Blackhorse Lowe, who originally premiered this film series at an outdoor film venue in Albuquerque as a way of celebrating, acknowledging, and supporting his fellow film comrades newest works.

Raven (2017)
Razelle Benally, Director, 10 mins
A young woman, overcome by grief, contemplates a dark path after the painful loss of her little girl. But a dreamlike encounter deep in the woods shows her that life is worth living after all.

Razelle Benally (Oglala Lakota/Diné) is an emerging independent filmmaker dedicated to creating stories with strong Indigenous female protagonists. She was the 2010 Santa Fe Indian Market jury-awarded winner for Best Documentary in SWAIA’s Classification X, an alumna of the 2012 Sundance Institute Native Filmmakers Lab and an awardee of the 2015 Sundance Institute Native Short film Production Grant for her most recent completed work I Am Thy Weapon. Benally’s 2015 Short Film The Blanket was the 2016 New Mexico Film Foundation’s Student Showcase winner for Best Narrative, Best Actor, and Best Overall Film of the Showcase. I Am Thy Weapon also won SWAIA’s 2016 Classification X: Best Short Narrative.

My Soul Remainer (2017)
Nanobah Becker, Director, 5 mins
Violinist Laura Ortman’s (White Mountain Apache) passionate and soulful My Soul Remainer roars from the mountain tops with earth, water, air and fire accompanying. Featuring ballet legend Jock Soto (Navajo).

Award-winning writer and director Nanobah Becker (Navajo) has her MFA in directing from Columbia University. The 6th World, a sci-fi short she wrote and directed, was an episode of the online series Futurestates (Season 3) and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The National Gallery of Canada selected the film for the prestigious exhibition SAKAHÀN: International Indigenous Art. Her award-winning short Conversion was official selection of the Sundance Film Festival, and Flat screened at numerous festivals in the U.S. and beyond. She directed I Lost My Shadow which won best Music Video at the imagineNATIVE film + Media Arts Festival. Recently, Becker was a dialogue director on the Navajo language dubbing of Disney Pixar’s Finding Nemo. She also produced award-winning short Shimásní (Sundance), and is currently working on a feature documentary called Living in the Shadows of Serra about the history of California’s Mission Indians.

Manna (2016)
Daniel Edward Hyde, Director, 12 mins
On a small remote island, one man lives almost completely isolated from civilization. This dryly humorous film muses playfully on how much we can really remove ourselves from the ‘developed’ world.

Daniel Edward Hyde is Navajo and Belizean based out of the Southwest, USA. Hyde’s work has spanned from Hollywood in The Making of Navajo Star Wars (2015), to the art world in Bert and Wei Wei: Time 2014 (2014), and Navajo Nation with narratives such as The Way Things Are (2011), and Brousins (2012). He was a producer and actor in Blackhorse Lowe’s acclaimed film Chasing the Light (2015). Manna focuses on his Caribbean roots in Belize, with an eye to apply the same passion for storytelling to Caribbean beauty.

Captivity Narrative (2017)
Jason Asenap, Director, 11:26 mins
When an ordinary dude keeps getting funny responses from others, he soon realizes he has an extraordinary doppelganger.

Jason Asenap is a Comanche and Muscogee Creek writer and director (and an occasional actor) based in Albuquerque NM. He holds an MFA in Screenwriting from the Institute of American Indian Arts. His films have screened around the United States and internationally, most recently in Canada, Finland and New Zealand. In addition to film, Asenap contributes thoughtful journalism, writing primarily about Indigenous contributions to film, art, and culture. You can find his writing in High Country News, First American Art magazine, and Indian Country Today. Asenap was born and raised in Oklahoma and spent significant time in north Texas. He calls the southern plains and the high desert of New Mexico home and it heavily influences his aesthetic.

Report (2015)
Blackhorse Lowe and Raven Chacon, Directors, 4 mins
Report is a musical composition scored by Raven Chacon (Navajo/Chicano) for an ensemble playing various caliber firearms. The sonic potential of revolvers, handguns, rifles, and shotguns are utilized in a tuned cacophony of percussive blasts interspersed with voids of timed silence. In the piece, guns—instruments of violence, justice, defense, and power—are transformed into mechanisms for musical resistance. This film is a collaborative effort between Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo), Raven Chacon (Navajo/Chicano), and Daniel Edward Hyde (Navajo/Belize).

Blackhorse Lowe is from the Navajo Nation. His feature film, Chasing the Light, won the Best Cinematography prize at the Terres en Vues/Land InSights Montreal First Peoples Festival 2016, and has played at many domestic and international film festivals such as imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, Skabmagovat Film Festival, and the Maoriland Film Festival. He is a 2012 Sundance Institute Native Producing Fellow. Lowe’s feature directorial debut 5th World premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and screened at film festivals around the world. He received the New Mexico New Visions Contract Award and Panavision Award for a short film he wrote and directed titled Shimásní, which premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, as well as garnering many awards. A recipient of a Re:New Media Award, Lowe is an alumni of the Sundance Institute’s NativeLab, Producers Lab, and Screenwriters Writers Lab.

Raven Chacon (Navajo/Chicano) is a composer of chamber music, a performer of experimental noise music, and an installation artist. He performs with numerous ensembles in the Southwest and beyond. Chacon’s work explores sounds of acoustic handmade instruments overdriven through electric systems and the direct and indirect audio feedback responses from their interactions. Chacon has served as composer-in-residence for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP), teaching composition American Indian high-school students living on reservations in the Southwest U.S. Under his instruction, this project was awarded the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in 2011. Chacon has presented his work in different contexts at Vancouver Art Gallery, the Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, 18th Biennale of Sydney, and The Kennedy Center, among other traditional and non-traditional venues.

Smoke Break (2005)
Sally Kewayosh, Director, 3 mins
Smoke Break presents a whimsical look at Native American identity and public perception.

Sally Kewayosh (Walpole Island First Nation) holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production from New York University. Kewayosh creates films that inherently and overtly exemplify First Nation culture. While continuing her journey as a narrative storyteller, Kewayosh has recently founded her own production company, Achimowin Films. In addition to her latest short film, Spring Fever, Kewayosh is developing her first feature film. Her film ventures will also provide an avenue for giving back to the First Nation community through educational programs and serve as a window into what will be the realm of possibility for their futures.

Hooghan (2018)
Blackhorse Lowe, Director, 10 mins
Larry A. and Carmelita B. Lowe tell their family history over images of a Hogan, a traditional Navajo dwelling, being built.

Blackhorse Lowe is from the Navajo Nation. His feature film, Chasing the Light, won the Best Cinematography prize at the Terres en Vues/Land InSights Montreal First Peoples Festival 2016, and has played at many domestic and international film festivals such as imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, Skabmagovat Film Festival, and the Maoriland Film Festival. He is a 2012 Sundance Institute Native Producing Fellow. Lowe’s feature directorial debut 5th World premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and screened at film festivals around the world. He received the New Mexico New Visions Contract Award and Panavision Award for a short film he wrote and directed titled Shimásní, which premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, as well as garnering many awards. A recipient of a Re:New Media Award, Lowe is an alumni of the Sundance Institute’s NativeLab, Producers Lab, and Screenwriters Writers Lab.