The Mentors
NANOBAH BECKER
(Diné)
Nanobah Becker is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has screened at numerous international film festivals. She is the recipient of the National Video Resources Media Arts Fellowship and was selected for the Native Forum Filmmaker's Workshop at the Sundance Film Festival. Nanobah is a citizen of the Navajo Nation, was born and raised in Albuquerque, and currently calls Tovaangar (Los Angeles) home.
ZACK KHALIL
(Ojibway)
Zack Khalil is a filmmaker and artist from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. His work often explores an indigenous worldview and undermines traditional forms of historical authority through the excavation of alternative histories and the use of innovative documentary forms. He recently completed a B.A. at Bard College in the Film and Electronic Arts Department, and is a UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow and Gates Millennium Scholar.
HEPERI MITA
(Māori Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāi Te Rangi)
Born into a movie making family, a career in the film industry was inescapable for director Heperi Mita – not that he didn’t try. His media career began in 2007, working in online journalism for the Pulitzer prize winning Las Vegas Sun newspaper. He returned to his home country of Āotearoa / New Zealand in 2011, following the death of his mother – indigenous film making pioneer Merata Mita. It was here that he began his career as an archivist with Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, the nation’s film archive. The combination of these experiences culminated in his directorial debut with documentary Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen which premiered at the 2018 New Zealand International film festival. Heperi was recently awarded the ‘2018 Pacific Islanders in Communication Trailblazer Award’ at the Hawaii International Film Festival.
The Mentees:
Abby Vaughn (Cherokee) She/Her
Levi Lee (White/Chinese-Malaysian) He/Him
Louisa Sparkle Harjo (Muskogee-Creek) She/Her
Halle Frieden (Creek) She/Her
THE LAB
Cinetelechy Lab aims to provide a virtual curriculum and mentorship opportunity that serves participating youth filmmakers in building a network with one another while learning valuable skills in storytelling, critical thinking, and media literacy.
The mentors will be able to have personalized one-on-one virtual meetings throughout the program to help uplift their voice and get their stories heard. The program will culminate with a live and virtual screening featuring films by the mentors along with the films created by that year's participants.
CINETELECHY
Cinetelechy is an ongoing film series started in 2019 by Atomic Culture and Blackhorse Lowe which takes place twice a year at the Admiral Twin Drive-in, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The series observes a distinct type of filmmaker, their motivation to re-examine and re-imagine narratives, the need for self-determination; having both a personal vision and the ability to actualize that vision from within. Each screening highlights a feature length film accompanied by film trailers, shorts, and video art highlighting indigenous, local, and emerging filmmakers.
MATEO AND MALINDA GALINDO
Atomic Culture is a curatorial platform founded by Mateo and Malinda Galindo. Our mission is to collaborate with artists on site-specific projects that reimagine the outlook of our cities.
They were curatorial artists in residence at the Loisaida Center in 2017. Their exhibitions include Ojalá at the Carlsbad Museum and Art Center (2018), Entre Irse y Quedarse at Galeria Merida in Merida (2017), Mexico, and Future Now/Futura Ahora at the Loisiada Center (2017), Turn on/Take Cover, Carlsbad Museum and Art Center (2016), Shapeshifting: Towards Being Seen, Tulsa Artist Fellowship (2019), Re_, reimagine.site (2020) Site specific projects include American Ledger No.2, a score by Raven Chacon (2019), Election Night variety show, State of the Artist: We’re Only Dreaming (2020), Storefront sign by Demian DinéYazhi' Destroy the Myth (2020). Film Series Cinetelechy I, II, III. They have been guest lecturers at New School, Intro to Curating, and panelists in 2016 on Prefigurative Politics on the Eve of the Election at the Vera List Center. In 2019 they were invited to curate a booth at MECA art fair in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Atomic Culture is currently a 2019-2021 Tulsa Artist Fellow and Integration Grant recipient.
BLACKHORSE LOWE
Blackhorse Lowe is a filmmaker from the Navajo Nation. His current feature film, FUKRY screened at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media arts festival and many other festivals internationally. CHASING THE LIGHT, his previous feature won the Best Cinematography prize at the Terres en Vues/Land InSights Montreal First Peoples Festival 2016. The film has played to great praise at many domestic and international film festivals such as imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, Skabmagovat Film Festival and the Maoriland Film Festival. He is a 2012 Sundance Institute Native Producing Fellow. Lowe’s feature directorial debut 5th WORLD premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and screened at film festivals around the world. He received the New Mexico New Visions Contract Award and Panavision Award for a short film he wrote and directed titled SHIMÁSÁNI. The film premiered at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and went on to screen at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, as well as other Festivals around the world garnering many awards and accolades along the way. A recipient of a Re:New Media Award, Lowe is an alumni of the Sundance Institute’s NativeLab, Producers Lab and Screenwriters Writers Lab. Lowe also curates an ongoing film series in Albuquerque, New Mexico called CINEDOOM that showcases both edgy and genre-driven indigenous films. Currently he is a 2019, 2020, 2021 Tulsa Artist Fellow recipient, writing a variety of genre features and programming film screenings in the Tulsa area.
More information on Cinetelechy.com
Poster design by Christian Holtzscher