December 2010
 Terry Jones (Seneca) is a filmmaker and commercial photographer whose primary goal is to portray contemporary Native American society. His short videos have included several works on Seneca foods, with screenings often followed by food tastings, including What the Hell Is Corn Soup? and Frybread: A Traumedy, in which he also starred. In other works he explores the struggle to retain Indian identity in his community. Thomas Indian School Reunion documents one of the annual gatherings of former students at the residential school and orphanage, which ran from 1855 – 1956 on the Seneca reservation. He also produced and edited a five-part series on artists for the Gallery/Museum of the American Indian Community House in New York City.
In 2005, Jones attended the Institute of American Indian Arts Summer Film and Television Workshop where he was awarded an ABC/Disney Talent Development Fellowship for his feature-length screenplay, Salem (working title), about a 14-year-old girl’s experience in residential boarding school in the 1940s, which is under option to Disney. He is currently in-development with Casino Nation, a documentary about the impact of the introduction of a casino on the community, which has received funding support from Native American Public Telecommunications, POV-The American Documentary, Independent Television Service, Lucius & Eva Eastman Fund, Sundance Documentary Fund and New York State Council for the Arts.
Jones has served as a panelist for the New York State Council for the Arts. From 2005 to 2009 he was on the Board of Directors at the American Indian Community House, serving as Vice-Chairman and Secretary. Jones grew up and is currently living in the Cattaraugus territory of the Seneca Nation of Indians in western New York, where he is developing projects concerned with Seneca language and culture.
Image credit: Terry Jones - photograph by Stephen Lang
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