Flagstaff Red Screen Film Festival: Celebrating Indigenous World Cinema

Flagstaff Red Screen Film Festival, a new film festival celebrating Indigenous World Cinema, will take place in Flagstaff, AZ, July 24-28. FREE to the public, the festival’s inaugural lineup includes the Arizona Premiere of films from Canada, Australia, Scandinavia, and the US, as well as a spotlight on Film and Television Director Sydney Freeland (Diné) and a tribute to the late filmmaker Jake Hoyungowa (Diné/Hopi). The full lineup and free tickets are available at www.redscreenfilmfestival.org. Festival Highlights Highlights of the five-day festival include a Spotlight on Emmy-nominated film and television Director Sydney Freeland (Navajo) with an encore screening of her first feature film Drunktown’s Finest, and the Arizona Premiere of SGaawaay K'uuna / Edge of the Knife, co-directed by Gwaai Edenshaw (Haida) and Helen Haig-Brown (Tsilhqot'in), the first feature film in which the actors speak only in dialects of Haida, an endangered language now spoken by fewer than 30 people in the world. The festival will also present a tribute to Flagstaff filmmaker and photographer Jake Hoyungowa, who passed away in May 2019. Much of Hoyungowa’s works focused on Indigenous rights and life on Dinétah (Diné Land-Nation) and Hopitutskwa (Hopi Land-Nation). The tribute will be followed by a Focus on Navajo filmmakers, at which Christopher Nataanii Cegielski, Stacy Howard, Sarah Del Seronde, Blackhorse Lowe, Deidra Peaches and Donavan Seschillie will be in attendance. All screenings will take place at Harkins Theatres Flagstaff 16. Filmmaker Dustinn Craig (White Mountain Apache/Navajo) will present a talk on Indigenous Storytelling and Self-Representation at the Museum of Northern Arizona, a festival partner. The Flagstaff Red Screen Film Festival is free. Reserve your free tickets now at www.redscreenfilmfestival.org.