Making The River : LATEST EVENTS

Native American Health Center Fundraiser

makingtheriver — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:53:05 +0000

SNAHC Film Fundraiser
Date: July 17, 2009 7:30 PM
Location: Guild Theater
2828 35th Street
Sacramento, CA 95817

The film will follow with a panel for discussion along with Jimi Simmons, who has been a great supporter of diabetes awareness in Native communities in the Bay Area.

Price: $7 – $50 (depending on desired level of contribution)
Info Line: 916-341-0575 x212
Website: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/59802

Contact: Eric Enriquez, 2020 J Street, Sacramento, CA 95811 916-341-0575 x212
erice@snahc.org

NMAI’s 2009 Native American Film + Video Festival

makingtheriver — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:36:46 +0000

Making the River will screen at the 2009 Native American Film + Video Festival in New York City , March 26-29 at the George Gustav Heye Center. We are excited to be invited to attend the National Museum of the American Indian as it celebrates their 30th Anniversary film fesival with indigenous communities from around the world.

Our film will screen on Saturday and Sunday, March 28th & 29th, at 12:30pm in The Screening Room. An introduction and Q &A will follow the film. This will be our first trip to New York City and we are thrilled to be attending NMAI’s film festival. Please join us if you are in area!

MTR at Capitol Theatre in Olympia, WA

makingtheriver — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:25:05 +0000

A benefit screening for Gateways for Incarcerate Youth will feature Making the River on Saturday, April 11, 2009 at 1pm. The Oregon Film Society will sponsor our film to screen at Captiol Theatre in Olympia, WA. All proceeds from the screening will go to help empower incarcerated youth to create a positive future for themselves through youth cultural awareness and educational programming.

A Q &A session with Jimi Simmons will follow the screening. For more information about getting involved with Gateways, please make contact with them at Evergreen State College.

Indian Country Today news article

makingtheriver — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:48:04 +0000

An interview with Jimi Simmons appeared in a Indian Country Today this week from our visit to Denver. The 5th Annual Indigenous Film & Arts Festival opened with Making the River and invited us to attend. Indian Country Today caught up with Jimi for this interview. Please check out the article here.

For more information about the Indigenous Film & Arts Festival in Denver, please visit their website. The film festival is presented by the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management.

Transcript of Howie Movshovitz review for Colorado Public Radio

makingtheriver — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:06:08 +0000

Indigenous Film Festival 2008 -

What’s called “indigenous filmmaking” doesn’t have much in common with Hollywood . It’s not interested in movie stars, explosions, car chases or superheroes. But it is about the variety and texture of human life. But Colorado Public Radio film critic Howie Movshovitz says that for now five years, there’s been a festival in these parts to show and celebrate indigenous film.

REVIEW:

The idea behind Indigenous film probably began around 1922 with Robert Flaherty’s famous “Nanook of the North.” That first great documentary made at least some people worry that the film was more Flaherty’s fiction than a genuine view of the life of an Inuit man living near Hudson ’s Bay in Canada . It’s certainly not Nanook’s picture of himself. “Nanook of the North” has many virtues, but it’s an outsider’s idea of a culture Flaherty didn’t really know, and the question it still raises is “who gets to represent whom?” And, if people don’t have the opportunity to represent themselves, is it valid if someone else does it?

Then, around 1980, when portable video became available, these questions began to be addressed. A few experienced filmmakers brought cameras to groups of people who’d never had them – all over the world. Those groups started making films about themselves. They, of course, didn’t see themselves as exotic or comic, and they didn’t make up silly explanations for their behaviors. The Ikpeng of Brazil, for instance, speak a language most Americans don’t understand; they dress, cook and dance differently; but from the films they’ve made about themselves it seems that the hard wiring in human beings is pretty much the same. The Ikpeng laugh at the same things we do, have the same basic needs; they tell storie, and their little boys like to pee on each other when they play by the river. That’s part of what you get from indigenous filmmaking.

For now the fifth year, Jean Rubin and Merv Tano have directed what’s called The Denver Indigenous Film and Arts Festival at various locations in the area. And from what I’ve seen there are at least two genuinely distinguished films in the schedule.

Sarah del Seronde’s new documentary “Making the River” takes on a lot of questions. One big one is the practice of removing Native Americans from their home turf and sticking them in institutions. Jimi Dexter Simmons became a ward of the state of Washington when he was 17 months old. His incarceration – and that’s the right word no matter what the state says – began at St. Mary’s Home for Boys, and it led all too soon to the state prison in Walla Walla, where he found the same now-grown kids he’d known at St. Mary’s. To alienate him and others even more, the state government had de-certified the tribe, the Grand Ronde, so that in a20real sense the government told Simmons that he had no identity. When a guard was killed in a riot at the prison, Simmons was clapped away in Guantanamo-style conditions.

“Making the River” is about Simmons’ trial as well as his life story. A good bit of the film shows Simmons now, in close-up, with enough context to indicate that his20life has improved. But his face is puffy, his eyes sad; his voice is terribly soft. He speaks slowly, with great precision; his words are so direct it’s astonishing, and with no pretension. He has the unassuming bluntness of an ancient ballad. You could look at his face forever, and you can’t help thinking “what have we done to this remarkable human being?”

The other extraordinary film in the Indigenous Festival is “The Exiles,” from 1961. It was directed by Kent MacKenzie, put together for about 45 cents, and it’s hardly been seen in the past 47 years. MacKenzie died in 1980. Dennis Doros and Amy Heller from Milestone Films saw a clip from the picture in a documentary about films made in Los Angeles . They tracked it down, got the UCLA archive to restore it and have now released it to theaters. After the screening in the Indigenous Film Festival, it will stay in town for at least another w eek.

The film takes place over 12 hours in the lives of a group of Native Americans who’ve moved to Los Angeles from various reservations. They’re emotionally lost. They wander around the Bunker Hill section of t own, drink constantly, scuffle and late at night on a grubby hilltop, they try to enact a drum ceremony, which falls apart because the characters are drunk and miserable.

Director Kent MacKenzie couldn’t afford to synchronize the sound. The three lead actors had never been in a film before. Mostly, the film’s built out of vulnerable, articulate monologues with images that complement instead of illustrating what they say. The nighttime cinematography by Erik Darstaad and John Morrill is simply incredible – a magnificent play of light and darkness that embodies the doubts, dislocations, nightmares and hopes of the three people. I don’t know anything like “The Exiles.” It’s stunning, filled with despair, and magnificent.

I’m Howie Movshovitz

Native Peoples Magazine November/December 2008

makingtheriver — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:38:08 +0000

Making the River will be highlighted in the upcoming edition of Native Peoples Magazine. We are extremely excited that our documentary has been selected in the November/December publication. Please help spread the word about our small success! Native Peoples is a ground-breaking magazine not only because of it’s focus on American Indian content but it is also the only magazine sold from coast to coast that celebrates the history, art, culture, and contemporary lives of indigenous peoples. Making the River is humbled to be included, and truth be told, this was one of our goals to make it in! Thank you Native Peoples Magazine.

Making the River selected to open film festival in Denver

makingtheriver — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:05:26 +0000

Making the River has been selected to screen at the 5th Annual Indigenous Arts and Film Festival. The International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management recognized that media is a powerful tool to show the ongoing challenges and triumphs, and share what’s happening in our communities. IIIRM started the Denver-based festival to exhibit the many different issues that indigenous peoples around the world face. And starting this year, festival organizers opened up their program for open call submissions. We are delighted to hear they extended their festival to include Making the River in the program. It is a tremendous honor for a festival to recognize the importance of this film, but what’s more is that EXTENDED their festival one day to just to include our film.

Please join us at the opening night screening of Making the River on October 7, 2008 at the Indigenous Arts and Film Festival at University of Denver.

United Nations Association Film Festival

makingtheriver — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:38:05 +0000

Making the River is an official selection of the United Nations Association Film Festival. We are delighted to be invited to screen on the Stanford University campus at the Annenberg Auditorium on October 26, 2008 at 4:50pm.

UNAFF celebrates the power of films and videos dealing with human rights, environmental themes, women’s issues, protection of refugees, homelessness, racism, disease control, universal education, war and peace. The 11th UNAFF will be held from October 19-26, 2008 at Stanford University including screenings in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and San Francisco.

The film festival program includes 41 documentary films from 41 countries and not one them is to be missed! Please join us and show your support of world cinema.

For more information and details about the film selections, please visit the UNAFF website.

Critical Resistance invites Making the River to Oakland

makingtheriver — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:15:24 +0000

Critical Resistance is a national grassroots organization committed to ending society’s use of prisons as an answer to societal problems. Its vision is the creation of genuinely safe, healthy communities that respond to harm without relying on prisons and punishment. Making the River is proud to be invited to be a participant in the CR10 Film Festival in Oakland, CA. The 10 year anniversary of Critical Resistance will be held on September 26-28,2008 and our film has been invited to screen during this weekend. Making the River will screen at The Parkway Speakeasy Theater and all proceeds will benefit the Intertribal Friendship House (IFH) and Legal Support for Prisoners with Children (LSPC). CR10 aims to reunite our voices, reinvigorate our collective refusal to be silenced through workshops, skill shares, performances, action, reflection and celebration.

In September 1998, thousands gathered in Berkeley, California, for conference that founded Critical Resistance’s movement to abolish the prison industrial complex (PIC). Each participant, with their own experiences of oppression and resistance, watched as diverse struggles were unified: by humanity, hope, and the shared vision of a different world. We witnessed a vision of a world with truly safe, healthy, and whole communities; a world with unconditional access to self-determination and dignity for all; and, critically, a world without imprisonment, policing, and other forms of punishment and control.

Please join us in our efforts to strengthen our collective will to build a world without walls. A Making the River Q&A session with Jimi Simmons and Karen Rudolph will immediately follow the film screening. For more information, please visit the Critical Resistance website.

Smoke Signals

makingtheriver — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:42:09 +0000

For one Los Altos couple, the anniversary of the day they met nearly 30 years ago brings memories more complex than fondness or nostalgia.

Before he came to live on a quiet street, Jimi Simmons, a Native American, was consigned to the foster care system and later, prison. He met his future wife, Karen Rudolph, when he was on trial for his life. “Making the River,” a documentary chronicling one facet of the social turmoil of the 1970s, is their story. It captures the early tragedies that led to their lifetime of advocacy work in the community.

For more information about the story of Jimi Simmons and Karen Rudolph, a great article was recently published in the Los Altos Town Crier.

Grand Ronde, OR – The Grand Ronde Tribal newspaper, Smoke Signals, also featured an article on the life story inspiring our documentary, Making the River, in this week’s edition. For many tribal members, this is first time hearing about the Simmons family history. Please read the Grand Ronde article in full here.