March 2009
 Director Cedar Sherbert (Kumeyaay) was the 2008 recipient of the Rollin and Mary Ella King Native Artist Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research's Indian Arts Research Center in Santa Fe, where he worked on the screenplay for Biscuit (working title), a semiautobiographical tale based on his own childhood. Sherbert’s short film, Gesture Down (I Don't Sing) premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. His MFA thesis film Memory premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and won several awards including Best Short Drama at the 2004 imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival. He won the Horizon Award for Best Emerging Filmmaker at the American Indian Film Festival and has participated in professional development programs: IFP’s Project Involve and the ABC Minority Talent Development Initiative.
Sherbert coordinated the CineMedia Program at the 2006 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the Native Track Program at the 2005 San Diego Film Festival. In 2005 he curated "First Seen: Portraits of the World's Peoples, 1840-1880" at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Sherbert received an M.F.A. in film production at the University of Southern California, and has taught film theory courses at Kumeyaay Community College. He has led youth video workshops through the Heart of Los Angeles Live Arts Group and the Owens Valley Career Development Center. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
"I'm a Native American filmmaker. It's who I am. I can only speak for what I know. Scorsese is still an Italian American filmmaker. Woody Allen is a Jewish Brooklynite filmmaker. It's always going to be in my work; it's what makes me unique….I am interested in using film not only as a means of self-expression, but as a vehicle to address what I feel to be some of the concerns and issues facing contemporary American Indians. I wish to continue producing narrative works that not only speak to Native and non-Native viewers from within the culture, but that challenge long held stereotypes concerning Indian life while helping to expand the vocabulary of Native American cinema."
Screened by NMAI
Image credit: Cedar Sherbert
- courtesy of the filmmaker
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