<
Presents
NATIVE VOICES:
Contemporary Indigenous Art
Works on Paper

February 8 – March 23

Opening Reception: February 8, 6–9 pm

Curators' Talk: March 1, 4pm

Co-curators: Deborah Everett and Raquel Chapa

Artists:
Frank Big Bear
Jason Lujan
Jeffrey Gibson
Joe Feddersen
Miranda Belarde-Lewis
Kay WalkingStick
Lorenzo Clayton
Mario Martinez

Kentler will present a range of works on paper, from prints to
drawings, collage and installation – and it will include some of the
most exciting and vibrant work being currently made in any art
circles. The works represent a cross-section of contemporary
sensibilities, commenting on the challenges of the postmodern world.
Some deal with issues of identity, including that of being an outsider
in a mass society. The work may or may not hint at the ethnicity of
its maker, but it consistently employs powerful strategies to grapple
with modern life in a global world.

http://www.kentlergallery.org/pages/current.html

Gallery hours: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 12 – 5pm

VICE magazine is probably the best free print zine around. They also have an awesome website where you can view all of their past and current editions. They always have a theme. People write crazy shit that is always good for a laugh or a cry. Check out the edition above which is no longer availavble in print but is fully loaded on their site. It’s hilarious! Click image to go to their site. You won’t regret it.

Every year the Association on American Indian Affairs, a nonprofit organization established in New York City in 1922, holds their annual board members meeting along with a cultural event that reflects their mission. This year they chose a short film showcase open to the public which was hosted at the National Museum of the American Indian. Before the board meeting convened and the screening began a lovely reception, also open to the public, was hosted in the American Indian Community House gallery which is located across the street from the NMAI.

Center: board member John Echohawk

I arrived about ten minutes before the reception began at the Community House. The food and beverages were already set out. I can’t say I wasn’t tempted to dig in, but I refrained taking time to set up my video camera and test my audio equipment. For the record, we are a fledgling nonprofit ourselves so any expenses incurred come out of our/my own pocket. This includes camera and audio equipment of perhaps not the highest quality…my lavaliere mic crapped out on me. I was sad, actually I was frustrated. But my video camera is actually quite good! (see videoplayer above) Folks started trickling in right at 5:30p.m. Honestly, I was surprised to see a large turn out of supporters, members and the curious. While testing my equipment a non-Native woman wandered in. She looked confused but curious, which is good, I suppose. Gallery director, Soni Moreno, offered her some coffee and assured her that the unsolicited email she received would net free food and fine films. So she stuck around and why not? It was a well-catered event! I particularly enjoyed the fresh fruit and selection of double cream cheeses.

a selection of cheese lovers.

face stuffers, on-lookers, and art enthusiasts at the AICH gallery.

For three years now independent director/advocate/curator Raquel Chapa has programmed the films for the AAIA sponsored showcase. Each year she selects films that closely align with the objectives of the organization which include endowing scholarships for higher education, cultural preservation, and language retention. Each of the films selected for this year’s showcase illuminated these themes pragmatically: documentaries, yet were also reflective, even poetic: experimental narratives. The showcase itself was only an hour long and only began after the public board meeting which took about a half an hour. I think most of those invited or tourists who had wandered into the museum from Battery Park were surprised to find themselves at a board meeting. Quite honestly, the board meeting was the most illuminating portion of the evening for myself as my organization is about to embark on it’s own nonprofit adventure. I sat taking mental notes, “Ohhhhh so that’s what you have to do! Ah hah! Mmmm-hmmm.” Then the films began after a brief introduction by the coordinator Lisa Wyzlic and curator Raquel Chapa.

The six films presented back to back were a balanced representation of the over-arching theme of cultural preservation-a main tenant in the association’s mission statement-but with a post modern self-reflexive awareness. Annabel Wong’s Kawdan’s Song illustrated this point concisely.

Laura Ortman makes music.

Modern Indians may still reside on reservations, an archaic concept for the uninformed mainstream, but they also travel between that space which informs their cultural identity and the urban cities which also mark their identity but in less overt ways. Not ironically, New York is the space that will make new marks on the young Native musician in Kawdan’s Song. A gifted violinist, she is offered an audition at Lincoln Center. We see her arrive at her friend’s home-a beautiful loft somewhere in Manhattan (I wish I had friends like these!). We see her take in the sights of the city from the balcony; luminous time-lapse footage of the Empire State Building is coupled with reaction shots from the lead actress Laura Ortman. Music was composed specifically to reflect the emotions the protagonist is feeling at any given moment while dialog is minimal. This can be hokey if not executed well. However the director chose wisely to rely on the strength of Ortman’s screen presence, musical talents and her interesting beauty does not hurt either. She has a face one can look at for some time and not be bored or annoyed, like, say with Natalie Portman. We then see her prepare for her audition transforming herself from laid back girl to refined metropolitan woman. The audition does not go as well as she hopes noting from the wings the difference between her emotionally provocative performance and that of her competitor who performs a decorous by the books number for the judges.

Making it as an artist of any stripe in New York City can be a crushing disappointment for most who move here with that goal. In Kawdan’s Song this fact of life is no exception. However, it seems to say “only crybabies run back to the rez!” The final sequence reveals a self-salving performance in the park at Union Square. If they won’t invite you to the party make one for yourself even if you do so illegally-I believe you need a permit to play in public spaces in NYC. However the fact our protagonist is fresh from the rez and therefore wouldn’t know the rules works for the scene nonetheless. It is probably an unintentional irony that the performer is Native American-taking back the land via illegal performance in a public space without a permit!
Kawdan’s Song-1/ Establishment-0
I’m making it sound like Flashdance minus the stripping and iron welding, but t’s not. And the film is less trite than it sounds. Although it could have easily devolved into histrionics but the absence of dialog, strength of performance-both musically and performance wise-aid the film in it’s intention, which I believe is a simple iteration of a common theme, never forget where you come from.

Fun Times with Good Friends

The second film was not surprising to see in this showcase because it brilliantly illustrates another of the tenants of the AAIA mission which is language retention. Cedar Sherbert’s Gesture Down (I Don’t Sing) is based in part on the poem Gesture Down to Guatemala by the late Native writer James Welch. It is a studied montage of title cards and glimpses of his Kumeyaay family across the Mexican border of California. It is a self-aware rumination of the intimately distanced relationship between his identity seen through the veil of modernity-videocameras, pickup trucks, super Walmart purchases married to loss of language and loss of cultural connection. I have only see this one short piece by Sherbert, he’s obviously talented. More importantly, he is self-reflexive. A truly post modern Native film maker. Let’s hope to see more from him very soon.

more scenes from the gallery.

Executive Director Jack F Trope goes in for a cookie

The last four films in the showcase were documentaries. Half of Anything asked the probing question, “What is a real Indian?” Sherman Alexie, John Trudell and two intellectual Indian girls (we can see they are intellectual because they are shown wearing glasses and meandering around university campuses) offered some long-winded answers. Of course Sherman had to make the most stupid statement in the film, “When I see Indians at my readings wearing ribbon shirts, I’m like, ‘Come on…’ It’s like they’re wearing a costume…” Really, Sherman? Really? I think someone’s jealous because he doesn’t look as good in pink and turquoise ribbons!
More stupid statements followed from an Indian radio producer in the documentary “Indians for Indians” radio program out of Anadarko Oklahoma. He claimed when people who are non-Native happen across the radio program and phone in or email to tell him how much they like and value his work he thinks, “O.K. that’s nice but I don’t care because, really, it’s not for them. It’s for Indians.”
I guess that’s why the show and documentary chronicling it’s history is called Indians for Indians? Hmm-mm, I reckon. On the other hand, it could be the Oklahoma red-neck in him that makes him think in such a self-circumscribed manner. In any case these two docos were not as well executed as the endeavors from Wong and Sherbert but they were certainly thought-provoking and also aligned with the objectives of the AAIA.

All together this showcase demonstrated what thoughtful curation and programming can achieve especially when produced with a specific agenda and target audience in mind-provocation of thought regarding the objectives of the AAIA while demonstrating the film-making and performance acumen of contemporary Native talent. It is no surprise that Raquel Chapa is completing a documentary for PBS on the Trail of Tears. We look forward to more of her curatorial efforts as well as the debut of her film.

*See the videoplayer above for a brief, impromptu interview with herself and actress/musician Laura Ortman.

Special Note: In case we haven’t said it enough or in the case it hasn’t sunk in yet the American Indian Community House gallery is an incredible space that showcases the often contemporary work of American Indian artists. You simply must make your way down there to check out the art and meet the lovely Soni Moreno, the gallery director, and the rest of the friendly staff.

all images: copyright maria colon

Our friend and current artist-in-residence, Kimowan McLain, is out of the hospital! (Read more about why he was in the hospital on his blog.) He’s now doing some pretty cool video podcasts (that should inspire NAICA to get on the stick with posting more of ours) which you can, again, check out by visiting his blog. We want to wish him a very speedy recovery. Best wishes, Kimowan!

(Lake and the Sky, 42×37 inches, Mixed media on canvas, 2006. Courtesy of the Artist)

p.s. Kimowan’s blog has a vast archive section where you can read about his work as an artist and educator, and varying thoughts in general on being an artist (indigenous or not) in the 21st century. Check it out.

The Burden Carriers, 2007
dir. Pierre Barrera

For some reason this film was slated in the “Shorts from the Underground” section of ImagineNative. Albeit, this film can definitely be read as a short, realistically though it doesn’t fall within the classical narrative genre but exists somewhere in between narrative and experimental film, what I like to call experimental narrative. Shame on Maria for finding this tedious—just kidding—she has the right to feel this way as I can definitely see how she might, but I on the other hand felt the somewhat post-apocalyptic atmosphere, ala Terry Gilliam, and environmentally wasteful commentary on American consumer society refreshing in this tongue-in-cheek piece. After being introduced to Pierre by our mutual friend, Sterlin Harjo, I had the opportunity to sit down with Pierre and his wife prior to the screening. Both Pierre and his wife are extremely charming and warm people. I have never felt more relaxed in front of people after having only met them seconds before.

Our conversation moved to Pierre’s film, as I prodded to know more. Thus, Pierre informed me how he had an orchestra score the film in a very “experimental” style (see this is why we’d tend to categorize his film as experimental). The orchestra was given great liberty to experiment on the score as they watched the edited version over and over to provide the accompaniment for it. I had mentioned to Pierre it sounded as though it was a “foley orchestra”, which I was pleasantly surprised to hear him use this phrasing when discussing his film afterwards.

The Burden Carriers starts off with about five individuals carrying immense burdens of waste, if not possessions on their backs. They are somewhere in the desert, in this case high mountain desert, as Pierre filmed The Burden Carriers in Santa Fe. These five individuals roam the ostensible wasteland collecting post-consumer waste as they forge ahead adding it to their already cumbersome loads. One individual is stuck hauling a refrigerator on her back. Eventually they come to a highway and a pickup truck stops beside them as a man gets out and hands the lead carrier a steering wheel that he is getting rid of and the carrier affixes it to his burden. As the carriers continue their directionless march they move through the downtown center of Santa Fe (anyone who has visited Santa Fe will be able to identify this location with ease). Finally, the carriers come to rest within a suburban locale outside some poor, unexpecting family’s house. The burden carriers make themselves at home on the family’s front lawn and slowly, but literally, unload their burdens upon this family. Now and again, a carrier will go missing, which is eventually revealed as some unknown governmental force whisking these “burden carriers” off in a white van. It appears that since these original “burden carriers” no longer take part in our consumer culture, they are deemed no longer useful for our economy and wheeled off to some unknown wasteland of environmentally friendly, anti-consumer population away from the consumer-controlled populace. The poor unexpecting family has now become the next generation of burden carriers.

As I’ve recently, once again, begun to pare down my possessions (in an attempt to lessen my large carbon footprint), this was the way I read Pierre’s construction. He told me this was his first attempt at directing someone else’s screenplay, and I think he did a wonderful job commenting on our consumer culture with satire, wit and composition.

Negotiating any identity in world that is evermore globalized and homogenized can be a tricky business at best. Compound that with an identity that is in direct (or even remotely adjacent) contrast to the globalized majority and you run the risk of negotiating yourself into a tight spot. Context is everything when it comes to fully (or partially) realizing another’s culture, and most audiences’ attention spans haven’t the time for things like context. Therein lays the proverbial rub.

It is with this in mind, that NAICA attended the 8^th annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Festival in the hopes that we would get a good dose of context in which to begin another year of curatorial internet madness. And really, for the most part, I would say we were not to be disappointed. imagineNATIVE has always (as far as I know) included a Fine Art component in their programming that not only lends itself to compliment the larger media festival, but adds a precious dose of cultural context that so many of us need to have a decent world view. Plus, as we all know, those seats in the Al Green Theatre are less than comfy, so it is nice to get off one’s ass and go look at some art.

So let’s talk about the art this year. In a co-curated exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) entitled Shapeshifters, Time Travellers and Storytellers, curators Candice Hopkins and Kerry Swanson created a beautifully esoteric exhibition combining works of contemporary indigenous artists and filmmakers with a few samplings of traditional native objects, such as an Iroquois wampum bag and an engraved prehistoric mammoth tusk from Alaska. “Beautifully esoteric” are deliberate word choices on my part (not to insinuate that most of my words choices aren’t deliberate…) because the exhibition was truly beautiful and well crafted as far as choice of contemporary artists and their work, but esoteric even more so, mainly for the decision to include these few traditional objects from the ROM’s “cultural” collection with an almost arbitrary flair. I don’t want to equate it to that “primitive” art exhibition scandal in New York many years back (at which museum now escapes me) in which the curators exhibited artists like Picasso alongside categorically de-contextualized African and South Pacific carvings. But… then again, I must compare in that way simply because that is what came to mind when viewing these traditional objects in the larger context of contemporary indigenous based art. As an objective viewer, I simply had no idea what they were doing there.

I know that historically, the ROM has had a somewhat spotty reputation (on par with the Smithsonian here in the States) for exhibiting indigenous-made objects in an anthropologically patronizing way, and that the curators of this exhibition, in part, desired to display these objects, contemporary and traditional, side-by-side in order to weave a dialogue of past and present indigenous identities. The problem was that instead of a time-traveling, shape shifting dialogue, you simply had a wonderfully curated contemporary indigenous art exhibit with a random sampling of anthropological tidbits. There was no talking between the contemporary and the traditional. They were like silent strangers, awkwardly crowded together on a subway car.

The curation of contemporary work was pretty much spot on though (aside from the exhibition space being a little weird), and I wish that these pieces (from artists such as Kent Monkman, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Brian Jungen, Isuma Productions and the wonderful Alan Michelson) had been left to stand alone, on their own merits and on their own strengths as pieces of powerful storytelling. It wasn’t that the traditional objects took away from the exhibition necessarily; it was more that they didn’t add anything to it. And certainly these objects did not give the viewer the dose of context that I believe the curators were going for.

I digress though, because what I really wanted to talk about were the contemporary pieces, as that is what I believe imagineNATIVE does best; contextualize contemporary indigenous artists for a broader audience. There are plenty of great pieces to mention, but I will stick with my favorites, the ones I spent the most time with, and refer the reader to the podcast (below) between myself and Maria Colon, for further information and opinions on the exhibit in full.

First I have to mention the piece by Brian Jungen, Cetology, a 40 foot sculpture of a whale skeleton made out of plastic lawn chair parts. It was suspended from the ceiling by wires, like a dinosaur in a natural history museum. I mention this piece first simply because it visually dominated the exhibit, and also because I feel it did more to set the stage for dialogue between past and present than say, the wampum wallet or the mammoth tusk. It also challenged the viewer to look past the obvious contexts of contemporary objects (read: plastic lawn chairs) and anthropological references (read: natural history lookin’ skeleton) and determine the fragile space between the two. That fragile space is exactly the space contemporary indigenous artists must negotiate.

Another great example this carefully negotiated space: a piece by Faye HeavyShield, entitled hours, which was small, white book, whose pages were completely constructed out of seed beads. I don’t need to mention the correlation between traditionally exhibited Indian beaded objects and HeavyShield’s piece, but I will mention it simply for the fact, that yet again, this contemporary work did not need no wampum wallet to contextualize it for the audience. It spoke for itself.

Other great pieces were an installation by Nadia Myre, The Dreamers, which was a sprawling sculpture with spears and traditional Innu fishing nets, a 13-part video installation Nunavut (Our Land) by the beloved Kunuk and Cohn of Isuma Productions, and three mixed media objets d’art by the imitable Kent Monkman, who despite his tendencies to be extravagant for the sake of being extravagant, does a damn good job of negotiating the fragile space mentioned above. Not to mention he’s openly gay, which adds a whole other ingredient to the identity pot. But my favorite work by far was Light After Darkness, a video triptych by US artist, Alan Michelson. With titles (and an artist’s statement) taken from a melodramatic 1907 quote by Edward Curtis, Michelson paints a digital portrait of an ever-changing contemporary indigenous landscape. These three real time videos of urban skylines, displayed in gold frames like Remington landscapes, moved slowly from daylight to dusk, deluminating the industrialized cities of Ontario. All they needed to contextualize them was an incongruously gleaned quote from the Great Father of Indian Portraiture:

Alone with my campfire, I gaze about on the completely circling hill-top, crested with countless campfires, around which are gathered the people of a dying race. The gloom of the approaching night wraps itself about me. I feel that the life of these children of nature is like the dying day drawing to its end; only off in the West is the glorious light of the setting sun, telling us, perhaps, of light after darkness.

Edward S. Curtis, 1907.

Observations from the Fringes. by Sonny Grant

The NAICA crew—Maria, Renee, Torry and myself—arrived in Toronto to attend the 8th annual imagine Native Film + Media Arts Festival. We arrived Thursday evening. Thus after checking in at our hotel we descended upon the streets of Toronto. However, after wandering about the euphoria of being in Toronto wore off. Shortly thereafter Torry and I capitulated to exhaustion and went back to the hotel. Maria and Renee—the troopers that they are—attended a performance at the Gladstone Hotel. I received some grief for not attending because one of the performers was my friend Laura Ortman. All I can say is that a throbbing bunion, gin and exhaustion do not make Sonny a happy boy! I could see the Toronto skyline from our eighteenth floor hotel room. The CN tower was the last thing I saw before falling sound asleep.
The following afternoon I made my way to the Al Green Theatre. I ran into my friends,We chatted for a bit and had lunch with former greasy Indian Blackhorse Lowe. Thereafter I raced to A Sister’s Love screening block. We should’ve arrived earlier because we missed The Valley and the beginning part of A Sister’s Love.
A Sister’s Love (Dir. Ivan Sen 2007) is the true story of the murder of actor/journalist Rhoda Roberts’ twin sister Lois. The film not only addresses Lois’s murder, but the discrimination Rhoda and Lois experienced because of their mixed heritage. Roberts’ deceased father—a prominent activist—fought a long battle to preserve land scared to aboriginal culture. Therefore the film is tempered by stunning shots of the Australian wilderness. The landscape setting is an active participant in the film as opposed to just being a backdrop. Tragically it is in the Australian wilderness where Lois’ body will be discovered.
Although Rhoda is undoubtedly the central subject in this film, one could not help but wonder why her twin sister–the catalyst for the story–was not fully articulated. Lois is instead delegated to the recesses of the narrative. Her murder is still unsolved. Hence Rhoda continues to look for clues that may help discover the identity of the person who murdered her sister. Inevitably this leads Rhoda to the spot where Lois was discovered-deep in the Australian wilderness. Certainly most people would be overwhelmed with grief. However there was something in Roberts’ demeanor that made me question her sincerity. She shuddered at every sound and uttered that she was spooked in spite of the presence of the film crew. Every move was exaggerated. I was expecting her to climb up a tree to wait for a helicopter to pluck her out of the wilderness. This was undoubtedly the climax of the film yet it left me flaccid. I preferred the quiet and eloquent exchange Rhoda had with her brother in an earlier scene. You couldn’t help but note the stunned countenance of her brother. That scene, in all its temperance, fully expounded the devastation of losing a loved one as opposed to Rhoda’s melodramatic performance in the woods. Alas this scene was incongruent to the overall mood of the film. Such a shame A Sister’s Love could’ve been an excellent film. Hey Rhoda stop acting and just be!
At the end of the credits I skedaddled down Bloor Street to sip on some wine and chomp on free food. I forgot the name of the place. But I do recall the décor, which was part Cosi/Ikea/Starbucks under the guise of sophisticated watering hole. The festival sponsored this event. Giving me the opportunity to rub shoulders with delegates, board members and beautiful free loaders like myself. At one point an imagineNative board member cornered me. I hate being put on the spot, “Yes…No…ah….um…what?” As soon as I saw Nanobah Becker I extracted myself from this situation and moved toward her. “Nanobah!” She turned and we had one of those, “I’m so busy but I still want to talk to you” type of exchanges.
“Blah…Blah…Kiss…Kiss…see you later!”

After the Navajo Spotlight the NAICA crew went to watch Miss Chief Eagle Testickle perform Séance at the Royal Ontario Museum. For those of you who don’t know Miss Chief Eagle Testickle is the alter ego of artist Kent Monkman. Picture a better-looking male version of Cher. Half Breed that’s all I’ve ever been! The bitch is late! Come on darling I don’t have all night. Poof…Miss Chief emerges from smoke…. shrouded in funerary black regalia. She is fabulous in all her splendor…this is the woman I want to be when I grow up! The audience goes ape-shit. Miss Chief soaks up the applause…Bitch! Séance is part performance/art survey course that brings to life ethnographic/genre painters such as Kane and Catlin known for their “vanishing race” prototypical Indian paintings. In his previous and current work Monkman recreates 18th and 19th century paintings depicting assumed notions of history. However the catch is that he subverts these scenes by planting Miss Chief Eagle Testickle within the composition. Thus revising the myth surrounding frontier life. Miss Chief stood before the crowd channeling the spirit of Delacroix. On an opposite wall an image of the artist appears along with a voice recording describing his work. Miss Chief offered stinging rebuttals to Delacroix’s racist remarks.

I appreciated Monkman’s attempt to debase the stereotypical paradigms of aboriginal representation. Moreover it has been noted, “these images were fabricated to conform to their own expectations and values.” Before my departure Miss Chief emerged once more, this time in labia pink regalia that required the assistance of two well sculpted white men. Alas I could not stay for I had another event to attend. I met Laura outside and together we zoomed away in a cab….to be continued!

film still courtesy: Gwendolyn Cates

As a Puerto Rican I was excited to see this film which follows the career of New York City Ballet principal dancer, Jock Soto.
Jock is of mixed heritage-Navajo and Puerto Rican. The film was directed by his good friend Gwendolyn Cates-an estblished fashion and celebrity photographer. She also has a book of portraits titled “Indian Country” that features famous American Indian artists and activists. I like the images in her photo book. Although it is not altogether conhesive and the inclusion of Val (Chero)Kilmer is dicey at best. I heard from friends who saw her film at a special screening during this year’s Indian Market that it was a poignent piece, well worth seeing. I like to support female artists and directors since they are hard to come by especially ones with actual talent. So I was highly interested to see what Ms. Cates brought to the screen and her choices in representing certain aspects of Soto’s ethnic identity-most notably how he navigated being Navajo and Nuyorican.
But of course, I missed my opportunity to see the film and meet Jock and Gwendolyn in Toronto. See my “Adventures and Reviews” post for deatils as to why I missed it. (Evidently I can’t read directions)
Needless to say, I was bummed but I did see Jock meandering through a late night party at the Gladstone Hotel. When I mentioned to noone in particular that I wanted to at least meet him I was told he was “tired” which was ironic because I had just driven 12 straight hours just to make his screening and was pretty tired myself, but I didn’t bother him. A few nights later I did meet the director after the awards ceremony, which we also missed. She was in a daze having just won for Best Documentary. She told Sonny Grant she “felt honored” by the indigenous film community. Honestly, there wasn’t much compettion in the documentary department except for Bennie Klain’s Weaving Worlds which is about the best damn documentary you will ever see on the subject of Navajo rug weaving and the buzzard/traders who circle the rez looking for a steal. Though I loved Bennie’s film, and it is certainly deserving of an award or two, I can’t comment on the validity of Ms. Cate’s win. Perhaps her documentary truly is a masterpiece? I will have to see for myself. I will have that opportunity in November here in New York City at the Lincoln Center.

Then I will weigh in as to whether or not it merited and award or not. Of course, it will only be my opinion. HA!
Stay tuned for an in-depth review of the film and a possible podcast interview with photographer/director Gwendolyn Cates.

Our return from Toronto wasn’t as epic as our attempt to get there, but the saga continues . . . It started with a 4AM wake-up call that startled the four of us from our dreamy-headed sleep attempting to figure out where and what the hell that early morning noise was. Then my cell phone went off and I reset it for 4:30AM. That came too soon and I was up and in the bathroom washing the sleep from my eyes. Rene, Maria and Sonny were soon to follow suit and then Maria and I headed to the lobby so she could check out. While she dealt with the counter clerk, Zacharias Kunuk queued in line (actually he was the only other person in the lobby aside from staff) and I briefly questioned him about the award ceremonies the evening prior. I didn’t attend since I was planning on driving the crew out of Toronto. Filmmaker Bruce Haulli followed Zacharias shortly thereafter, Sonny and Renee soon accompanied us at the front desk, and we exchanged farewells with Bruce since Zacharias had taken his leave.

The under-rested, sleepy-headed NAICA crew made their way to parking level One to their Zip rental car named, MOTHER and packed our belongings into the trunk space and I proceeded to back us out of our parking spot (which took longer than I had intended) and hit the early morning Toronto streets. 5:00AM in Toronto is hauntingly eerie and empty. We headed out hoping we’d find some coffee place to fuel up, or more appropriately, wake up.

We got on the Gardiner Expressway and headed west out of Toronto. That early in the morning it was difficult converting the metric system to the English system to determine what speed I was cruising at, but I just gauged it by the other drivers. The drive to the QEW was long and filled with nothing more than suburban sprawl, the plight of North America. We were all itching to get out of Canada for some unexplained reason. It took a while to get out of the congested area surrounding Toronto before we found an exit to get off at so we could get coffee (by the way, I pulled off at what I thought was an exit earlier but turned out to be a truck weigh station–Canada does not denote these things well), the only business catering that early was Tim Horton’s and the coffee is nothing close to palatable. At one point, the east bound lane of the QEW had a small back up of traffic, some skeleton of a tractor trailer was still smoldering and partly ablaze and the river of headlights heading toward the emergency vehicles would be a tale to tell I’m sure.

Long story short, we finally made our way to the US Custom’s checkpoint. Needless to say, the custom’s agent was a bit too old to be manning the area since he couldn’t hear well enough with all the background noise and his short attitude didn’t make for a welcomed return back to New York. With a communal sigh of relief we were all happy to be back in the states, NY to be specific. Getting through Buffalo proved long since we joined the morning commuters rush hour and we needed to get to the Thruway so I could punch it and make it to Syracuse as fast as I could. The Thruway shoulders and medians were littered with the carrion of deer and my only thought was of the possible short supply of game for hunters this season. We only stopped once on the Thruway to coffee up and eat, and that was quickly. We had 45 minutes to Syracuse and I was getting anxious to get out of the car since I have a problematic knee, proving only problematic when fixed on a gas pedal for long periods of time. Finally, I pulled in front of my apartment and got out to stretch the legs and unload my share of the luggage burden. The crew came in helping me carry my miscellany into the apartment; refreshed themselves and then we said our farewells and exchanged hugs. As I turned to head into the house, a bit of sadness overwhelmed me knowing that I was going to experience some separation anxiety from my colleagues. But, we were back in NY.

Overall, my experience at ImagineNative was a good one, bonding more with my colleagues from NAICA, making new friends, enjoying a new city, watching some rather wonderful films and contemplating some rather confusing programs. This year’s festival may not have been as strong as previous year’s, but I can only comment on those events I attended and hope for the continued future success of ImagineNative.

Fellow CU alumnus, Mike Goodman’s, “A Deadly Affair” was unfortunately accepted into this year’s ImagineNative film festival. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any animosity towards Mike personally, I only had to endure this poorly constructed homage to film noir. It was so poorly lit (in this case overly lit–not in the traditional low-key lighting style of film noir) that it did a disservice to that classical genre; there were more grays than shadows and highlights. This film is an obvious example of not paying attention to detail. I’m not saying that Mike is a bad filmmaker, I’m simply saying that this film has been given credit where credit is not due.

Let me address some problematic issues with this film. The use of a replica 1940s vehicle that looked more like a modified hotrod especially when a camera tilt down revealed the specialized chrome rims completely jolted me out of my suspended belief. Another problematic area was the very sophomoric attempt at special effects, both visually and audibly. The special audio effect of the gunshot was so muted it most definitely was discerned as some non-diegetic sound—I myself perceived it to be a thud off camera. I felt embarrassed of the image-sound relationship in this film. The accompanying visual effect of gun smoke, which was expelled from the revolver’s barrel, was non-existent on the wall as shadow, yet the gun and hand holding the gun were existent. The gun smoke special effect was an obvious post-production addition, yet it’s cause-effect relationship was parochial. The acting was sub-par at best; the two male cast members were over dramatic and poorly directed, inducing a cringing sensation while watching their performances. This film does not represent the high caliber of work that usually comes out the University of Colorado.

“A Deadly Affair” is a film that should have been excluded by Navajo Spotlight I curator, Charmaine Jackson-John, but apparently she overlooked the deficiencies present within the film to include it in this survey of films. Regarding Charmain Jackson-John, I’m not sure what her curatorial credentials are, but it seems the inclusion of this particular film failed to create a cohesive and well-rounded program. When a film of such low caliber is included in a body of work, it stands out in stark contrast to those other, more deserving films. This creates an atmosphere of ambivalence regarding–in this case–Navajo filmmaking. I believe the rest of the films she incorporated in this spotlight provided a wonderful view into the insight and perspective of Navajo filmmakers. Overall, this was one of two films (possibly three) that shouldn’t have made it past the screeners into any program, but incidents like this are bound to occur.

written by Torry Mendoza