March 2011
 Donavan
Seschillie (Navajo) has directed short films, PSAs and music videos, often collaborating with childhood friends Deidra Peaches and Jake Hoyungowa. He and his collaborators premiered their most recent film, The Rocket Boy, at the 2010 Native Cinema Showcase in Santa Fe. The work was selected for the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, one of only 81 short films to be shown out of more than 6,000 entries. In 2011 Seschillie is the featured filmmaker at the Arizona State Museum’s Native Eyes Showcase.
Several of the team’s works were selected to be in both the Navajo cinema showcase organized by director Nanobah Becker in 2007 at the Ojo Encino Chapter House in the Eastern Navajo Agency and the Monument Valley Film Festival in Kayenta, Arizona. Seschillie is an alumnus of Outta Your Backpack Media, a youth outreach program developed by the non-profit organization Indigenous Action Media in Flagstaff. He is currently studying film aesthetics and production at the University of Arizona.
"Our creative process is a mysterious entity that always
revolves around moral values and realism. My Native American background
has never entered my mind while filming, nor has it been introduced
in our short subjects...as of yet. It's not my goal for our heritage
to be a crutch in filmmaking, but rather have our films stand
on their own."
Screened by NMAI
Image credit:
Donavan Seschillie - courtesy of the filmmaker; Donavan Seschillie
and Deidra Peaches on location - courtesy of the filmmakers
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