American Indian Film Festival
Encyclopedia
The American Indian Film Festival is an annual non-profit film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

 in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. It is the world's oldest venue dedicated to Native American films and prepared the way for the 1979 formation of the American Indian Film Institute.

According to the Institute, the Festival was first presented Seattle in 1975 and moved in 1977 to San Francisco, where it remains today. In 1979, the Festival was incorporated.

This festival is not to be confused by the Native American Film and Video Festival
Native American Film and Video Festival
The Native American Film and Video Festival is a noncompetitive showcase of film, video and audio productions held biennially in New York City. Each festival screens between 50 and 80 documentaries, short features and animations, introduced by their producers and members of the native communities...

, which was founded in 1979.

Recent festival winners include:
  • films and documentaries: Barking Water
    Barking Water
    Barking Water is a 2009 independent feature film written and directed by Sterlin Harjo that premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and stars Richard Ray Whitman, Casey Camp-Horinek, Jon Proudstar, Aaron Riggs, Laura Spencer, Quese iMC, Ryan Red Corn, and Beau Harjo.The film was shot in...

    , Given to Walk, Le jour avant le lendemain, Imprint
    Imprint (film)
    Imprint is a 2007 independent drama/thriller film co-written and directed by Michael Linn and produced by Chris Eyre.-Awards and nominations:-External links:* *...

    , Expiration Date
    Expiration Date (film)
    Expiration Date is an independent black comedy film that won many film festival awards.-Plot summary:The story is told by a Native American elderly man to a Native American boy who wants to give up dancing and leave the reservation by bus...

    , Johnny Tootall
    Johnny Tootall
    Johnny Tootall is a 2005 television film written and directed by Shirley Cheechoo and was filmed around Vancouver Island, British Columbia with the Ahousaht Nations people...

    , Dreamkeeper
    Dreamkeeper
    Dreamkeeper is a 2003 film written by John Fusco and directed by Steve Barron. The main plot of the film is the conflict between a Lakota elder and storyteller named Pete Chasing Horse and his Lakota grandson, Shane Chasing Horse...

    , The Doe Boy
    The Doe Boy
    The Doe Boy is a 2001 independent drama film written and directed by Randy Redroad. It was selected as the United States winner of the Sundance Film Festival/NHK International Filmmakers Award in 2000...

    , Unbowed, Smoke Signals, Healing of Nations, PahaSapa... The Struggle for the Black Hills

  • directors and filmmakers: Chris Eyre
    Chris Eyre
    Chris Eyre , an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, is a film director and producer.His films focus on all aspects of contemporary Native American life, while dispelling the usual stereotypes. Eyre's debut film, Smoke Signals , won the coveted Sundance Film Festival Filmmakers...

    , Nanci Rossov, Randy Redroad, Steve Barron
    Steve Barron
    Steven "Steve" Barron is a director and producer, best known for directing the films Coneheads , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the innovative music videos for a-ha's "Take on Me" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean"....

    , Rodrick Pocowatchit, Shirley Cheechoo
    Shirley Cheechoo
    Shirley Cheechoo is an award winning Cree actress, writer, producer, director, and visual artist, probably best known for her solo-voice or monodrama play Path With No Moccasins, as well as her work with De-Ba-Jeh-Mu-Jig theatre group...

    , Aaron James Sorensen
    Aaron James Sorensen
    Aaron James Sorensen is a Canadian born musician, writer, and film director. He came to some prominence at home and abroad with the release of his feature film Hank Williams First Nation in 2005. The film was the first Canadian feature to premiere in competition at the American Film Institute's...

    , Rick Stevenson
    Rick Stevenson
    Rick Stevenson is a writer, director, and producer from Seattle, Washington. In 2006, his film Expiration Date won both Audience and Jury Award for Best Film at the Omaha Film Festival and took Best Film honors at the American Indian Film Festival...

    , Sterlin Harjo, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Madeline Ivalu
    Madeline Ivalu
    Madeline Ivalu is a Canadian Inuk filmmaker and actor. One of the cofounders of Arnait Video Productions, a women's video and filmmaking collective in Nunavut, she co-directed, co-wrote and starred in Arnait's first feature film production, Before Tomorrow....

    , Georgina Lightning
    Georgina Lightning
    Georgina Lightning is a Native American film director, screen-writer, and actress. Lightning was born in Edmonton, Canada, and is a Mushwatchees Cree, registered with the Samson Band of the Hobbema Indian Reservation near Edmonton. She was raised off of the reservation.In 2007 she was featured...

    , Kevin Willmott
    Kevin Willmott
    Kevin Willmott is a professor of film at the University of Kansas and a movie director known for work focusing on black issues including writing and directing Ninth Street, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America and Bunker Hill....


  • documentarians: Mel Lawrence, Peter von Puttkamer
    Peter von Puttkamer
    Peter von Puttkamer is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, with special interest in environmental issues and in American indigenous peoples and cultures.-Early years:Von Puttkamer was born Baron Marc Peter von Puttkamer, in Bonn, Germany in 1957...

    ,

  • actors: Adam Beach
    Adam Beach
    Adam Ruebin Beach is a Canadian Saulteaux actor.He is best known for his roles as Tommy on Walker, Texas Ranger, Kickin' Wing in Joe Dirt, Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers, Private Ben Yazzie in Windtalkers, Dr...

    , Jay Tavare
    Jay Tavare
    Jay Tavare is an American actor. Tavare is perhaps best known as Vega in 1994 film Street Fighter. Tavare has played a number of roles in movies, including a Seminole in Adaptation, an Apache in The Missing, a Cherokee in Cold Mountain, and a Cheyenne in Into the West.His mother was White Mountain...

    , James Duval
    James Duval
    James Edward Duval is an American actor, who is most famous for his roles in the Gregg Araki trilogy—Totally Fucked Up, The Doom Generation, and Nowhere—in addition to Frank in Donnie Darko, Blank in May, Miguel in Independence Day and Singh in Go.-Personal life:Duval was born in Detroit, Michigan...

    , Jeri Arredondo, Judy Herrera
    Judy Herrera
    Judy Herrera is an American actress. She graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan.-Cinema:*The Postman , directed by Kevin Costner : Carrier*Melting Pot , directed by Tom Musca : Dolores...

    , Robert A. Guthrie, Cody Lightning
    Cody Lightning
    Cody Lightning is a Cree Native American actor.He is son of Georgina Lightning, and brother of William Lightning and Crystle Lightning....

    , Tonantzin Carmelo
    Tonantzin Carmelo
    Tonantzín Carmelo is an American actress. A California Mission Indian who counts herself a descendant of the original residents of Los Angeles, grew up performing in an Native American dance troupe led by her mother, Virginia Carmelo. Branching out into acting during college, she has since...

    , Carla-Rae, Trevor Duplessis, Candace Fox, Wes Studi
    Wes Studi
    Wesley "Wes" Studi is a Cherokee actor, who has earned notability for his portrayal of Native Americans in film. He has appeared in well-received Academy Award-winning films, such as Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves, Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans, the award-winning Geronimo: An...

    , Misty Upham
    Misty Upham
    Misty Anne Upham is a Native American actress best known for her role in the 2008 film Frozen River, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female....

    , and Casey Camp-Horinek, Winter Fox Frank, Michelle Thrush
    Michelle Thrush
    Michelle Thrush is a Canadian film and television actor, who won the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role in 2011 for her role in Blackstone....

    , Earnest “Ernie” David Tsosie III
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