What's New

The dynamic Heard Museum Film Festival, held biennially in Phoenix, and the museum's biennial film showcase have been put on hold. In the meantime the museum has begun a series of regular monthly screenings of outstanding new films and videos. For further information contact Wendy Weston or Lorinda Simmons at 602-252-8840.
8/12/08

Festival Entry Deadlines, August - October

Some festivals may require an entry fee.

Early submission: August 18, 2008
Official submission (shorts): September 5, 2008
Official submission (features): September 8, 2008
Late submission (shorts): September 19, 2008
Late submission (features): September 22, 2008
(entry fees increase in each category)
Festival: January 15 - 25, 2009
Sundance Film Festival
Park City, Utah
www.sundance.org

Entry deadline: August 31, 2008
Festival: TBA
Native Spirit Film Festival/El Festival Espiritu Nativo
London, England
www.nativespiritfestival.com

Entry deadline (shorts): September 1, 2008 and October 1, 2008
Entry deadline (features): November 1, 2008
Festival: January 21 - February 1, 2009
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
http://professionals.filmfestivalrotterdam.com/.aspx

Entry deadline: September 5, 2008
Festival: February 20 - 27, 2009
Reel2Real International Film Festival for Youth
Vancouver, British Columbia
www.r2rfestival.org

Entry deadline: September 15, 2008
Festival: November 13 - 16, 2008
Red Nation Film Festival
Los Angeles, California
www.rednation.com

Late submissions due: September 15, 2008 (fee charged)
Festival: November 20 - 23, 2008
Winnipeg Aboriginal Film Festival
Winnipeg, Manitoba
www.aboriginalfilmfest.org

Extended entry deadline: September 18, 2008
Festival: March 26 - 29, 2009
Native American Film + Video Festival
National Museum of the American Indian
New York, New York
For the Call for Entry form, enter here.

Participant applications deadline: October 8, 2008
Festival: February 7 - 12, 2009
Berlin International Film Festival
Berlinale Talent Campus
Berlin, Germany
www.berlinale-talentcampus.de/

Entry deadline: October 31, 2008
Festival: March 18-22
Indian Inuit: North American Native Film Festival
Stuttgart, Germany
www.nordamerika-filmfestival.com

Entry opens: late September, 2008
Festival: February 5 - 15, 2009
Berlinale/Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin, Germany
www.berlinale.de/en/HomePage.html

Upcoming Festivals, August - November

Festival: August 21 - 24, 2008
Native Cinema Showcase
National Museum of the American Indian and Center for Contemporary Arts in partnership with Southwestern Association for Indian Arts
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Los Angeles, CA: September 24 - 28, 2008
Washington D.C.: October 2 - 5, 2008
Santa Fe, NM: December 3 - 7, 2008
All Roads Film Festival
www.nationalgeographic.com/allroads

Festival: September 25 - October 10, 2008
Vancouver International Film Festival
Vancouver, British Columbia
www.viff.org/home.html

Festival: October 4 - 12, 2008
Morelia International Film Festival
Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico
www.moreliafilmfest.com

Festival: October 7 - 12
Indigenous Film & Arts Festival
"Contact: Conflict and Accommodation"
Denver, Colorado
www.iiirm.org

Festival: October 10 - 11, 2008
International Cherokee Film Festival
Tahlequah, Oklahoma
www.internationalcherokeefilmfestival.com

Festival: October 15 - 19, 2008
imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival
Toronto, Ontario
www.imaginenative.org

Festival: October 9 - 19, 2008
Hawaii International Film Festival
Honolulu and other sites, Hawaii
www.hiff.org

Festival: November 7 - 15, 2008
American Indian Film Festival
San Francisco, California
www.aifisf.com

Festival: November 20 - 30, 2008
IDFA/International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
www.idfa.nl/industry

Opportunities

Check back soon!

At the Festivals and Forums

Awards and Native Works Selected
A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - N - O - P - S - T -W
For a list of individual awards and honors enter here.
- Thanks to Daniel Grignon for contributing numerous updates to this section.

A

Augsburg College Native American Film Series
Each year the Augsburg College Native American Film Series in Minneapolis presents four kinds of film events: "Documentaries at Augsburg" focusing on current and historical issues in Indian country, "New Voices in Native Media" honoring youth and new filmmakers, "Native American Voices" presenting the current winners from the Fargo Film Festival, and special events with regional tribal communities. All events are free and open to the public.
www.augsburg.edu/ais/filmseries/
5/20/08

Available Light Film Festival
March 4 - 9, 2008, Whitehorse, Yukon
www.yukonfilmsociety.com
4/8/08

B

Awards at the Berlinale/Berlin International Film Festival, February 7 - 17, 2008, included the Generation section's Crystal Bear for Best Short Film to Nana, the story of a young girl, by indigenous Australian director Warwick Thornton. The Amnesty International Film Prize was awarded to Sleep Dealer (director: Alex Rivera), a haunting and imaginative foray into the near future in a story about a man from an indigenous community in southern Mexico who works in a border town which exports his labor via interactive electronics to the United States. Other films with indigenous themes or directors include the newly-restored feature The Exiles (director: Kent Mackenzie), the experimental short Shooting Geronimo (director: Kent Monkman) and short films from New Zealand in the Generation section including Run (director: Mark Albiston), Taua/War Party (director: Tearepa Kahi) and The Trophy (director: Justine Simei-Burton).
8/19/08

C

Cine Las Americas International Film Festival
April 16 - 24, 2008, Austin, Texas
www.cinelasamericas.org
5/20/08

Cowichan International Aboriginal Film Festival
April 17 - 19, 2008, Duncan, British Columbia
http://aff.cowichan.net
5/20/08

D

DerHumALC (Festival Internacional de Cine de Derechos Humanos)
April 24 - May 15, 2008, Santiago del Estero and Buenos Aires, Argentina
www.derhumalc.org.ar
5/20/08

Dreamspeakers Film Festival?
June 4 - 7, 2008, Edmonton, Alberta
www.dreamspeakers.org
6/30/08

E

Encuentro Hispano Americano de Video Documental Independiente: Contra el Silencio, Todas las Voces
April 9 - 12, 2008, Mexico City, D.F., Mexico
www.contraelsilencio.org
5/20/08

Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
March 11 - 22, 2008, Washington, D.C.
www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org
4/8/08

F

Fargo Film Festival
March 5 - 8, 2008, Fargo, North Dakota'
www.fargofilmfestival.com
Includes "Native American Voices" program and awards.
4/8/08

Festival of Native Film & Culture
Agua Caliente Cultural Museum
(formerly the Palm Springs Native American Film Festival and Cultural Weekend)
March 5 - 9, 2008, Palm Springs, California
www.accmuseum.org/page49.html
4/8/08

G

Global Green Indigenous Film Festival
April 18 - 20, 2008, Santa Fe, New Mexico
www.ntec.org
5/20/08

H

Hot Docs
April 17 - 27, 2008, Toronto, Ontario
www.hotdocs.ca
5/20/08

I

International Film and Video Festival of Indigenous Peoples CLACPI/Coord. Latinoamericana de Cine y Comunicación de los Pueblos Indígenas
September 10 - 20, 2008
La Paz and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
www.clacpi.org (Spanish)

N

Native American Film Festival
April 13 - 15, 2008, Keene, New Hampshire
www.lakotafriends.org
5/20/08

The Native Experience Film Festival is took place on January 19, 2008, at the Swinomish Youth Center in La Conner, Washington, presented by the Skagit County Historical Museum. Screenings included the feature film Expiration Date (director: Rick Stevenson) and short works produced by the youth media organization Longhouse Media/Native Lens. Featured guests include the filmmakers and Swil Kanim, Robert Guthrie, Gene Tagaban, Tracey Rector, and Elaine Miles.
2/18/08

O

The 5th annual Oxford Brookes University Human Rights Film Festival was held February 29 - March 9, 2008, in Oxford, England. Films with indigenous themes included Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations (director: Rebecca Somar), Rabbit Proof Fence (director: Phillip Noyes), and Abya Yala: This Land is Ours from Bolivia. For more information go to www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/be/cendep/humanrights.
2/25/08

P

The Provincetown International Film Festival, held June 17 - 21, 2008, screened approximately 50 short and feature films. The HBO Audience Award for Best Feature was given to Frozen River (director: Courtney Hunt), produced by Heather Rae and starring Melissa Leo and Misty Upham. The film, which is being distributed theatrically by SONY Pictures, is the story of two single mothers, one white, one Mohawk, who band together for economic survival by smuggling immigrants into the United States through the border-free Akwesasne-St. Regis Reservation. A second outstanding feature, with Native director and cast, was Older than America (director: Georgina Lightning), with actors Adam Beach, Lightning, and Wes Studi, which focuses on the devastating impact on a Native reservation of the boarding school experience.
8/19/08

S

Sámi Film Festival
March 15 - 19, 2008, Kautokeino, Norway
www.samifilmfestival.no
4/8/08

T

Talking Stick Film Festival
June 21 - 26, 2008, Santa Fe, New Mexico
www.seedgraduateinstitute.org
6/30/08

Tribeca Film Festival
April 23 - May 4, 2008, New York, NY
www.tribecafilmfestival.org
5/20/08

W

Wairoa Maori Film Festival
May 30 - June 2, 2008, Auckland, Wellington and Taumarunui, Aotearoa (New Zealand)
www.manawairoa.com
6/30/08

Weeneebeg Aboriginal Film and Video Festival
March 5 - 9, 2008, Moose Factory, Ontario
www.weeneebeg.ca
4/8/08

** indicates that a short description of the film can be found in the PDFs of titles screened at the 1995, 1997 and 2000 Native American Film and Video Festivals. To open the PDF sorted by title, enter here.

Image credit: Carlos Efraín Pérez being interviewed by Marcelino Pinto, 2000 Native American Film and Video Festival - Photograph by Amalia Cordova, NMAI