In recent years, films and television shows made by Indigenous people have been increasingly gaining recognition and honors, from Reservation Dogs and Dark Winds to Frybread Face and Me.
Actress Lily Gladstone took it to another level when she became the first Native American to win a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for her work on Killers of the Flower Moon.
The recent success of those and other projects notwithstanding, Indigenous people continue to have low representation as makers of film and TV projects.
That may soon start to change if there are more educational programs like the one that just ended last week in Santa Fe, a rigorous, tuition-free, three-week course that aimed to help create the next generation of indigenous directors.
It was taught by New York University Tisch School of the Arts faculty, in cooperation with Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) and the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). Entitled Empowering Indigenous Voices: An Intensive Film Directing Workshop, it gave eleven students a chance to go deep into their work and come out with a new short film.
One of the NYU teachers and cocreators of the program, Jennifer Ruff, who grew up in New Mexico, said that increasing such opportunities for indigenous filmmakers is long overdue.
“The most important stories that we need right now are from the Native Americans, and I feel from the indigenous people in general, from the Americas, we didn't listen to them in the beginning of this country,” Ruff said. “It's about time these people have their voices heard. They're strong, creative, wonderful voices that deserve more recognition than they've ever gotten.”
One of those voices is that of DezBaa’, a Santa Fe–born actor and screenwriter of Diné heritage. She has an impressive set of credits already, but continues to encounter people who are skeptical about anyone who wants to direct a production. She’s grateful that the workshop, held at SFCC, gave her a chance to simply try some techniques.
“It's a chance to be experimental. It's a chance to say, 'Okay, I think I want to try this. Let's see if it works.' And then be like, 'Uh, nope, that's doesn't work.' Or, 'Wow, I had this idea. I executed it and it worked.' And you can amaze yourself.”
Both results came up for DezBaa' during the workshop. Her film focused on a scene in which a trans teen needing to use a bathroom finds themself in a challenging situation. DezBaa’ described it as a shoot with a “simple objective” but admits that she might have tried to do too much.
“ I was way too ambitious with what I wanted to do. I had extras. I had like a lot of moving elements. I had some choreography that was involved where you're hitting your beats, and I've seen this happen on set."
"I've seen directors, like, 'Okay, you have to hit your mark here and, then they're going to come in, then this is going to happen, then this happens, and then boom, boom, boom.' And you have to memorize your lines at the same time. And how, as a director do I help the actors get there?”
DezBaa’, who plays the role of Helen Atcitty in Dark Winds, upped the degree of difficulty even more by casting her child and ex-husband for key roles in the scene.
“ If I was my own director, I would've fired me, because I had to completely shut off mom mode and be like a professional person talking to this child actor.”
According to Jennifer Ruff, those kind of challenges and experiences are exactly what the workshop was trying to provide for students.
“ They're trying to find their voice. They're trying to push themselves and do something maybe they haven't done," Ruff said. "It wasn't about the success of the film, it's really about the success of the filmmaker in the long term."
"We want you to understand your own voice and how powerful that can be and to really push yourself and not be okay with it just being passable . . . to really push yourself to emulate the filmmakers that they look up to.”
In addition to exploring voice, the workshop required students to execute a number of exercises and assignments, with an emphasis on everything from the technical details of how to make one simple shot work to how to tell a complete story well.
It was an education that Ruff had long wanted to provide—to take what she and her colleagues do every year in Manhattan, and make it work for part of a summer in New Mexico.
“ It was a dream of mine to be able to take our education—which I really believe in—to people that can't get there," Ruff said.
"To me, growing up in Albuquerque, New York was like the moon. Mind blowing. To me, to be able to come and bring this education, even this portion of it to this population that I care so much about was one of the most meaningful things.”
Ruff said that most of the eleven students were from New Mexico; with others from places such as Seattle and Oklahoma. Part of the idea was to help them understand what it’s like to work on real projects for long hours, just as directors do on major film locations.
“They all took it so seriously. We brought our New York schedule, it's like 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and, they're shooting on the weekends and it was very intense.”
DezBaa’ said she thrived in the environment, and spoke about it as a suitable companion to her recent television work, which has also provided a number of benefits, for her, and her community.
“I'm really grateful for Dark Winds's impact to be able to provide jobs for New Mexicans here. And not only that, this year mostly, especially, I've seen a great number of mentoring going on behind the scenes. I think that should be happening across the board at all the productions.”
DezBaa' has appeared in eight of the 14 episodes in the first two seasons of Dark Winds. She’s also been in the writing room, contributing to six episodes in Season Two.
She’s not sure exactly what’s next, career-wise, but it seems likely she’ll do more writing and directing coming out of the workshop.
“This program gave me the support that I needed to realize I can do this in a way that was very "highbrow." Because it's all about the story and they didn't let us forget that and how to be in service of the story," DezBaa' said.
"And to me, service is the purpose of being here on this planet.”
Jennifer Ruff says she’s hopeful that NYU will return again to Santa Fe next year or some other time to offer the workshop again.
