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Archive for February, 2007
Saturday, February 24th, 2007
Suffering from the winter doldrums? Hate waking up to depressing cloudy skys and overdue Christmas bills?
Well, NAICA can help with that. (Not your bills, sorry. We’re broke too.) But we can help with your deep, deep, inescapable sadness. We can make your stifling, boring, incredibly dull and depressing winter life cheery again!
Feeling better? That’s right … let it all out.
So anyway, like we were saying, if you are suffering from winter depression and are pissed because everyone else except you got to take off President’s Day, then remember to check out the Winter Edition of NAICA which is going live February 28th, 2007. It will make you feel all better.
The Winter Edition will feature such interesting and neat-o people as artists-in-residence, Tracy Curley, and Adebukola Bodunrin (<--CANADIAN!!!!). There will be spotlights on Nanobah Becker and The Fighting Cholitas as well as an informative essay on Native Cinema by resident writer Torry Mendoza and of course, Editor-in-Chief (no pun intended) Maria Colon will reveal what’s inside the Sundance Institute’s Native Initiative program via an informative and cleverly written Longview blog. A kick-ass interview with sibling trio Rock Gap was finessed by music scholar Katie Henner. She even arranged for some tunes so you can enjoy while getting all voyeuristic with their words.
Also of note is the call for entry to our first annual online juried exhibition. Keep your eyes peeled!
Monday, February 19th, 2007
Contemporary Indigenous Art Exhibition
March 3, 2007–September 3, 2007
George Gustav Heye Center, New York/National Museum of the Amrican Indian
(At One Bowling Green in Wall Street Area of Manhattan.)
For Native people, land has multiple meanings. It is home, culture and identity, but it also represents violence, isolation and loss. The artists in Off the Map reinvent and examine landscape from this complex perspective, creating work that exists outside of Western landscape traditions. Their work also defies common expectations of Native American art in both its form and content.
Jeffrey Gibson’s (Mississippi Band Choctaw/Cherokee) paintings utilize intensely colored marks, glossy and transparent pours, and pigmented silicone to depict an imaginary and fantastic environment. Carlos Jacanamijoy (Inga) is inspired by both the light and sounds of Colombia’s tropical rainforest and the urban cityscape of his Brooklyn home in the creation of his dramatic interior landscapes. James Lavadour’s (Walla Walla) elegant depictions of the landscape are rooted in his intimate relationship to the land near his home on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. Erica Lord (Inuit/Athabascan), an emerging artist known for work that addresses themes of race, ethnicity and gender as well as memory and home, challenges the audience’s perceptions of reality and place. Emmi Whitehorse’s (Navajo) multilayered abstract work explores memory and land and draws upon language and symbolism.
The artists in Off the Map use the landscape as both muse and subject, but none seek to represent a specific place located in a guidebook or on a map. Their work embodies the longing and emotion, connection to and detachment from the land that are universal to contemporary Native experience.
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
 US Comedy Arts Festival in (GASP!!!!!!!) Aspen Colorado (Gee who knew that snooty town had a funny bone?) will feature Taika Waititi’s Eagle vs Shark in the Feature Length Narratives competition. Read on for further details. And, good luck TAIKA and CREW!
The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival (USCAF) and HBO announced the lineup for the 2007 Film Program sponsored by HBO Films, at the 13th installment of the prestigious festival to be held February 28 – March 4 in Aspen, Colorado. The film program line up showcases 30 features – including three world premieres and two North American premieres – 20 shorts, culled from entries around the world. Headlining the film lineup is the opening night film “Waitress,” directed by the late Adrienne Shelly, which will screen at the Wheeler Opera House on Tuesday, February 28 at 6:00 p.m. The film premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it was acquired by Fox Searchlight, and her husband Andrew Ostroy announced the creation of the “Adrienne Shelly Foundation” to support the efforts of women writers and directors. Waitress” will be Shelly’s second film to appear at the USCAF. In 2000 her film “I’ll Take You There,” was awarded the prize of Best Director.
Armen Kaprelian’s “Closing Escrow,” Frank Oz’s “Death at a Funeral,” Jim Pasternak’s “Certifiably Jonathan,” and Gary Toll’s “Judy Toll: The Funniest Woman You’ve Never Heard Of.”
The film program will also feature special screenings of works in progress including John Landis’ “The Rickles Project,” “The Combacks” directed by Tom Brady and Jamie Kennedy’s “Heckler.” Jamie Kennedy will also host this year’s Festival awards ceremony.
“The films that we have selected to showcase alongside the live performances at the festival offer a diverse group of talent from different backgrounds and experiences, but all solidified in the foundation of comedy,” said Kevin Haasarud, Director of the USCAF Film Program. “Each year the festival looks forward to bringing together such a vast community of filmmakers, film buyers, television executives, comedians, writers and actors and giving them the rare opportunity to collaborate with each other and admire one another.”
Joining the World Premieres is a collection of American and International films that include:
Special Screenings:
· The Comebacks directed by Tom Brady (USA)
– Work in Progress
· Heckler directed by Jamie Kennedy (USA)
– Work in Progress
· Rocket Science directed by Jeff Blitz (USA) · Starter for 10 directed by Tom Vaughn (UK)
Feature Length Narratives In Competition :
· American Fork directed by Chris Bowman (USA)
· Cashback directed by Sean Ellis (UK)
· Closing Escrow directed by Armen Kaprelian (USA)
· Colour Me Kubrick directed by Brian Cook (UK)
· Cook Off! directed by Guy Shalem (USA) – World Premiere
· Death at a Funeral, directed by Frank Oz (UK) – World Premiere
· Delirious directed by Tom DeCillo (USA)
· Eagle vs. Shark directed by Taika Waititi (New Zealand) – World Premiere
· I am Reed Fish directed by Zachary Adler (USA)
· Ira & Abby directed by Robert Cary (USA)
· Park directed by Kurt Voelker (USA)
· Razzle Dazzle: A Journey Into Dance directed by Darren Ashton (Australia)
· Severance directed by Christopher Smith (UK)
Saturday, February 10th, 2007
If China built you a multi-million dollar stadium out of the (sort of) kindness of their hearts, what would you do? Well, if it were up to NAICA, we would arrange to have Taiwan’s national anthem played at the opening ceremony of said stadium in front of, among other people, Chinese Ambassador Qian Hongshan and hundreds of Chinese workers who built the enormous stadium. It would be really funny, right? And actually, China would deserve it, because we all know those Commies have ulterior motives.
Anyway, according to NPR, this knee-slapper of an incident actually occurred this past Thursday in Grenada during an opening ceremony of the $40 million Queen’s Park Cricket Stadium funded and built by The People’s Republic of China.
Grenada, which only as recently as 2005 switched it’s diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, is the second-smallest country in the western hemisphere and is located just north of Trinidad and Tobago. NAICA believes this musical gaffe was actually a cry for attention, because really, who wants to be the second-smallest country in the western hemisphere? They must have a tough time at the Olympics.
Olympics aside, we all know that those small Carribean nations have some serious identity issues. It is generally known that it is way better to be the colonizer than the colonizee, and if Grenada is anything, it is the colonizee; first by the Spanish, then the Brits, then by those pushy French people who like to talk loudly during press screenings at Sundance. And now the Chinese were trying to be all up in their business? No thank you.
We firmly believe that Inspector Bryan Hurst, who directed the Royal Grenada Police Band in their beautiful rendition of San Min Zhu Yi was not merely confused by the similarities between the official titles of Taiwan and China, which are respectively, “The Republic of China” and “The People’s Republic of China.” Nope, this was no mistake on the part of Hurst. NAICA believes that he was just trying to do what any self-respecting colonizee would do: stick it to the man.
That or he was just trying to be funny. And to either motive, NAICA says, “Bravo.”
p.s. we do realize “colonizee” is not a real word.
Friday, February 9th, 2007
Top Story:
Recent reports claim the recently deceased (like yesterday) stripper-turned-reality T.V. star, Anna Nicole Smith was 1/1000ths Cherokee and 1/1,000,000,000 Mescalero Apache. Though she was un-enrolled, and veracity of these claims are pending, she leaves behind a void in the two tribal communities (one federally recognized, the other, not so much) as she was highly regarded amongst her people as a consummate professional reality TV performer. Also, her passionate support of weight loss through speedy diet pills and subsequent endorsement of TrimSpa was thought to be a positive step in rectifying the obesity issue facing most American women today, especially those who eat one too many frybreads with powdered sugar (mmmmgood).
Anna Nicole Smith is survived by a mourning family and baby daughter of questionable citizenship, though sources say the biological father just might be 1/2 Cherokee thus qualifying “baby Anna Nicole jr” for the roll thus salving the hearts of her people, and guaranteeing a quality college education without the necessity for student loans.
May her journey to the nightland be a peaceful one.
Friday, February 9th, 2007
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Top Story:
NAICA editor Maria Colon was recently informed that Eagle vs Shark co-star, Jemaine Clement, indeed found her interviewing skills slightly awkward though they resulted in a “very funny” video re-enactment (see above videoplayer), which was linked on a Flight of the Conchords fansite (www.conchords.net).
It was said Clement has enjoyed, and frequently wears the American Apparel Camp Indie Fuck Fest t-shirt given to him by the NAICA crew. However, he is not sure what the phrase “indie fuck” means. Research is being done as this goes to post on the definition of the term: indie-fuck. Results will be forwarded to Mr. Clement’s representatives in the near to far future.
Second to the Top Story:
Blackhorse Lowe, of the Navajo nation, has re-written his second feature film, Lefthanded Path, for the upteenth time. He is tired of re-writing what was already a well written script.
Though funding resources are currently being sourced, but in reality, have been for a year or so now, no defintite sources have been sourced. Plans to write and shoot the next to the next Napolean Dynamite might be considered. Friends close to the auteur say, “Everyone knows, well those studio fucks anyway, that indie films of the “Dynamite” ilk are a sure-fire return on their investment. So, Blackhorse is going to have to drop the art-boy act and make a Napolean-esque film so he can get the cheddar to make his real art. Otherwise, well, it’s hard to say what will happen.”
Time will tell if Mr. Lowe will succumb to the faux-independent film craze. We’ll keep you posted.
The Far North Report:
Sources say it is really fucking cold in Moose Factory Ontario where the annual Weeneebeg Aboriginal Film & Video Festival, hosted by the Moose Cree nation and the Brothers Rickard, will be held. Snowcats and mukluks might be provided if you attend. http://www.weeneebeg.ca/new.php The Truly Important News: NAICA online will launch their Winter edition on February 28th 2007. Though the lineup has not been confirmed sources close to the editors say Canadians are likely to make an appearance as Canadians are always, and forever will be, featured in editions of the webszine.
Stay tuned for further details.
Thursday, February 1st, 2007
WINS SPECIAL JURY MENTION
FOR ACTRESS TAMARA PODEMSKI
Park City,UT–The feature film debut from Writer/Director Sterlin Harjo, FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND, won a special jury mention for actress Tamara Podemski “for a fully realized physical and emotional turn” as an American Indian whose carefree lifestyle leads her to the brink of tragedy. Podemski, who plays “Miri Smallhill” in the film, had returned to Park City to accept the award.
The trembling actress thanked her director from the stage in a heartfelt speech which included a grateful nod to the Sundance Labs (where the film was workshopped) for having the courage to bring Harjo and the project into their fold.
“My work in FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND is because of Sterlin Harjo”, said the Toronto-based actress. “He knew who Miri was so clearly and was able to guide me towards her. And Cody Lightning made my on-screen time so easy, so natural. It’s been a blessing to work with them both.”
Harjo, whose short film GOODNIGHT, IRENE won numerous awards on the festival circuit and also played the Sundance Film Festival, was equally praising of Podemski.
“I couldn’t be happier for her,” said Harjo. “I have always felt she is an extraordinary actress, and I was thrilled by her work in the film. To have her work celebrated and honored this way is wonderful.”
“We are so proud of Tamara,” added Producer Ted Kroeber (2007 Independent Spirit Award nominee for AMERICAN GUN). “We’re proud her striking acheivement in crafting Miri Smallhill has been recognized by the Sundance Film Festival jury.”
Shot entirely on location in Oklahoma, FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND tells the story of Cufe Smallhill, a young Native American who looks for a future he can embrace after the death of his father. Ms. Podemski played Miri Smallhill, Cufe’s sister, who is experiencing a painful and destructive time in her life just as Cufe is trying to figure out his.
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