Verde Valley Archaeology Center Events

Third Annual Native American Film Festival
The films will be shown in the Camp Verde Multi-Use Complex Auditorium, 370 Camp Lincoln Road, Camp Verde, AZ 86322.

Multi-Use Complex Theater

Tickets are $10 for each film ($7 members).
TICKETS FOR ALL FILMS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR.

Friday, September 28, 7:00 PM - Frybread and Film Night
A frybread stand will be selling frybread tacos from 5:30 to 7:00 pm outside the theater

Search for the World’s Best Indian Taco
Director: Steven Judd | Producer: Pamela J. Peters | Language: English | Genre: Documentary |
Produced In: 2010 | Country: US | Length: 15 min.
Awards: 2011 North American Indigenous Image Awards (Best Short Film Award, Best Actor and Actress Nominees)

A production of Intertribal Entertainment of the Southern California Indian Center, the Search for the World’s Best Indian Taco tells the whimsical story of a Choctaw grandfather who regales his grandson with tall tales about his lifelong quest for true love.

Holt Hamilton's newest film More Than Frybread which covers the fictional World Wide Frybread Association's First Annual Arizona State Frybread Championship. Twenty-two Federally recognized Arizona Tribes sent representatives to compete in Flagstaff for the First Annual frybread championship. This comedy film closely follows five individuals, representing the Hualapai, Hopi, Navajo, Tohono O'odham and Yavapai-Apache tribes, who are obsessed with their own fry-bread making skills.

Saturday, September 29, 2:00 PM

In Killer Whale and Crocodile carvers from two of the world’s great carving traditions come together. A First Nations carver from Canada travels into the jungles of Papua New Guinea and a New Guinea carver travels to urban Canada. Together, they share each other’s cultures and learn about the myths and legends that inform their individual artistic styles. In the Spring of 2006 John Marston, a young Coast Salish carver from Vancouver Island who has already gained a strong reputation for his innovative approach to traditional Coast Salish styles, visited Teddy Balangu, a carver from the Sepik River of Papua New Guinea. Teddy returned to Canada where he was the artist in residence at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia for 5 months. What strikes the eye as one looks from John’s art to Teddy’s is the similarity of forms and lines found in Coast Salish and Sepik River pieces. The Coast Salish carvings include killer whales, ravens and eagles; the Sepik pieces include crocodiles, cassowaries and hornbills. But both speak of culture, tradition and art.

Saturday, September 29, 3:30 PM

Dennis Banks co-founded the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) in 1968 to call attention to the plight of urban Indians in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The film presents an intimate look at Dennis Banks' life beginning with his early experience in boarding schools, through his military service in Japan, his transformative experience in Stillwater State Prison and subsequent founding of a movement that, through confrontational actions in Washington DC, Custer South Dakota and Wounded Knee, changed the lives of American Indians forever.

Saturday, September 29, 5:00 PM

Canicula
Director: Jose Alvarez | Producer: Jose Alvarez, Mauricio Fabre, Clara Fabre | Language: Spanish with English subtitles | Genre: Documentary | Produced In: 2012 | Country: Mexico | Length: 65 min. | Awards: Best Foreign Production by the International Federation of Film Critics, 53rd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival

Canícula brings us a different view of Mexican life from what we have learned on the news. The Totonac people in Santa Cruz offer a different narrative that is as timeless as the landscape that surrounds the village of Zapotal. They continue to live their traditions despite the encroachment of modern outside influences. The film weaves together their daily routines, focusing on the women creating skilled pottery and the awe-inspiring religious rites of the voladores, young men who suspend themselves upside down from a high pole "flying in the wind." The imagery is bolstered by the marvelous soundtrack composed by Martin Delgado. Álvarez displays a tireless curiosity, embodied in a roving and slyly self-aware camera, but without the lingering narration of more classical anthropological efforts. Gorgeously shot and exquisitely scored, the film avoids clichés about the insulated village. Instead, Canícula captures the tension between tradition and the creeping forces of modernity.

Saturday, September 29, 7:00 PM

Reel Injun
Director: Neil Diamond (Cree) | Producers: National Film Board of Canada, Rezolution Pictures |
Language: English | Genre: Documentary | Produced In: 2009 | Country: Canada | Length: 86 min.|
Awards: 2011 Peabody Award for outstanding achievement in electronic media; 2010 Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television awards for Best Direction, Best Visual Research, Best Original Music Score.

Hollywood has made over 4000 films about Native people; over 100 years of movies defining how Indians are seen by the world. Reel Injun takes an entertaining and insightful look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of North American Natives through the history of cinema. Travelling through the heartland of America, Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond looks at how the myth of “the Injun” has influenced the world’s understanding – and misunderstanding – of Natives. With candid interviews with directors, writers, actors and activists, including Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch, Robbie Robertson, Sacheen Littlefeather, John Trudell and Russell Means, clips from hundreds of classic and recent films, including Stagecoach, Little Big Man, The Outlaw Josey Wales, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Atanarjuat the Fast Runner, Reel Injun traces the evolution of cinema’s depiction of Native people from the silent film era to today.