Billy Luther

Last updated
Billy Luther
Born
Winslow, Arizona, U.S.
OccupationDirector
Years active2002–present

Billy Luther is a Native American independent film writer, producer and director. He has made several documentaries and short films. He belongs to the Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo tribes. [1] He is known for his movies Frybread Face and Me (2023) and Miss Navajo (2007), and the 2022 television series Dark Winds. Luther identifies as gay. [2]

Contents

Early life

He descends from the Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo peoples. [3] Luther studied film work at Columbia College Chicago, and then in Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. In 2000, he accepted an internship at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York City, where he contributed to the production of the museum's native American Film + Video Festival in 2000 and 2003. [4] [3]

Career

Billy Luther began directing and making short films as a student at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. One of these films was Face Value (2000), [5] a short documentary on racial profiling. [4]

Miss Navajo was Billy Luther's first documentary film he directed. In this film, Luther explores the annual Miss Navajo pageant, which his mother won in 1966, and how contestants must demonstrate traditional skills such as language fluency and sheep shearing and butchery. It was produced and distributed by Independent Lens, a series on the PBS channel. It premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and received a 2007 Michael Moore Special Founders Prize. [6] The film has traveled to over 300 festivals and is taught in schools, colleges, and universities worldwide.[ citation needed ]

Grab was Luther's second major documentary film, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. In the film, Luther portrays a Navajo community with many obstacles, yet they continue to practice and observe traditions. [7] It tells the story of the Laguna ceremonial practice of giving. Grab gives the audience views into the lives of the families who have pledged to gift items and help the community. These families toss food, cultural items, and other goodies from the roofs of their houses to the participants below to "grab." [8] Grab was narrated by actress Parker Posey. [7]

Luther co-directed the Native American episode of MTV World's Rebel Music, a world-traveling documentary series. [9] The series was launched online through Facebook and became MTV's highest-viewed online content in its history. [10] Rebel Music, the series, was executive produced by acclaimed artist and activist Shepard Fairey, who also created the visual identity. Rebel Music examines the lives of young people using art and music to spark change around the world. In November 2014, coinciding with Native American Heritage Month, the episode Rebel Music: Native American debuted as MTV's first long-form program on Facebook. The episode featured "Frank Waln, a hip-hop artist seeking to protect the environment and his heritage, and pop musician Inez Jasper, demanding attention for women's rights and safe harbor from violence." [11]

Luther directed and produced Red Lake, a short documentary film about a high school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. The film follows three survivors as reuniting ten years after the tragic event. [12] The 30-minute film premiered at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for Best Short Film at the 2016 International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards. [10]

Luther's web-series, alter-NATIVE, debut on 2018 in PBS' IndieLens StoryCast Youtube Channel. [10] The series produced by ITVS and PBS followed a year in Native fashion designer Bethany Yellowtail life on her journey [13] to create a line inspired by women on the front lines of political activism. [14] The second season, also known as alter-Native: Kitchen, followed three Native and Hawaiian chefs: Brian Yazzie, a Navajo/Diné chef from Arizona, based in Minnesota; Kalā Domingo, a Hawaiian culinary student; and Hillel Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee-Athabaskian chef and caterer in Seattle. The chefs prepare traditional foods from their Indigenous cultures that have sustained their communities for generations and modernize them for the next generation. [15]

Frybread Face and Me , Luther's narrative feature debut, premiered at the 2023 SXSW film festival. [16] The film is about an 11-year-old city boy who is sent to his grandmother's ranch on the Navajo reservation. There, he learns about family, tradition, and Navajo culture, and gains new insights into his own history and Indigenous culture. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frybread</span> Variety of flatbread

Frybread is a dish of the indigenous people of North America that is a flat dough bread, fried or deep-fried in oil, shortening, or lard.

<i>Independent Lens</i> Television documentary film series (began 1999)

Independent Lens is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of Independent Lens were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Howard, Maggie Gyllenhaal, America Ferrera, Mary-Louise Parker, and Stanley Tucci, who served two stints as host from 2012-2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Eyre</span> American film director

Chris Eyre, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, is an American film director and producer who as of 2012 is chairman of the film department at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miss Navajo</span> Annual pageant held on the Navajo Nation

Miss Navajo Nation is a pageant that has been held annually on the Navajo Nation, United States, since 1952.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundance Institute</span> American non-profit organisation

Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by actor Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers from all over the world. At the core of the programs is the goal to introduce audiences to the artists' new work, aided by the institute's labs, granting and mentorship programs that take place throughout the year in the United States and internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundance Film Festival</span> Annual film festival held in the United States

The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.

Miss Navajo is a 2007 independent documentary film directed by Billy Luther. It follows 21-year-old Crystal Frazier who, alongside six other Navajo women, competes in a beauty pageant for the title of Miss Navajo Nation 2005–2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Brown (film director)</span> American film director

Margaret Brown is an American film director who has directed four feature length documentaries. Her film Descendant, about the descendants of survivors of the last ship to carry enslaved Africans into the United States, was shortlisted for the 2023 Academy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heidi Ewing</span> American documentary filmmaker

Heidi Ewing is an American documentary filmmaker and the co-director of Jesus Camp, The Boys of Baraka, 12th & Delaware, DETROPIA, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, One of Us, Love Fraud (series), I Carry You With Me (narrative) and Endangered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dawn Porter (filmmaker)</span> American film director

Dawn Porter is an American documentary filmmaker and founder of production company Trilogy Films. Her documentaries have screened at The Sundance Film Festival and other festivals as well as on HBO, CNN, Netflix, Hulu, PBS and elsewhere. She has made biographical documentaries about a number of historical figures including Bobby Kennedy, Vernon Jordan, and John Lewis and has collaborated with Oprah and Prince Harry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Wolf (filmmaker)</span> American film director

Matt Wolf is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and producer. His notable films include Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, Teenage, Bayard & Me,Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, and Spaceship Earth. In 2010, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. His subjects include youth culture, artists, archives, music, and queer history.

Sydney Freeland is a Native American (Navajo) filmmaker. She wrote and directed the short film Hoverboard (2012) and the film Drunktown's Finest (2014), which garnered numerous acclaims after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Her second film, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, debuted at Sundance and was released on Netflix in 2017.

More Than Frybread is a comedic pseudo-documentary that was released in 2012 which was directed and written by Travis Holt Hamilton. The 96-minute comedy premiered at the Harkins Valley Art Center on May 4, 2012. This film stars Tatanka Means, Greg Fernanadez and Mary Kim Titla. Wanting to celebrate and showcase Native American cultural tradition, Hamilton says “More Than Frybread is a comedy to showcase nationalism and inter-tribal competition”

Beth Aala is a three-time award-winning American documentary filmmaker and film producer.

<i>Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World</i> 2017 Canadian documentary film

Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World is a 2017 Canadian documentary film directed by Catherine Bainbridge and co-directed by Alfonso Maiorana. The film profiles the impact of Indigenous musicians in Canada and the US on the development of rock music. Artists profiled include Charley Patton, Mildred Bailey, Link Wray, Jesse Ed Davis, Stevie Salas, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Robbie Robertson, Randy Castillo, Jimi Hendrix, Taboo and others. The title of the film is a reference to the pioneering instrumental "Rumble", released in 1958 by the American group Link Wray & His Ray Men. The instrumental piece was very influential on many artists.

Lana Wilson is an American filmmaker. She directed the feature documentaries After Tiller, The Departure,Miss Americana, and Look Into My Eyes, as well as the two-part documentary Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields. The first two films were nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.

Ramona S. Diaz is a Filipino-American documentary filmmaker best known for creating "character-driven documentaries". Her notable works include the 2012 film Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey, featuring the band Journey and its new lead vocalist Arnel Pineda, which won the Audience Award for the 2013–2014 season of PBS's Independent Lens; and the 2003 film Imelda, about the life of Imelda Marcos, former First Lady of the Philippines.

<i>Feels Good Man</i> 2020 US documentary film

Feels Good Man is a 2020 American documentary film about the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. Marking the directorial debut of Arthur Jones, the film stars artist Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe. The film follows Furie as he struggles to reclaim control of Pepe from members of the alt-right who have co-opted the image for their own purposes. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker. It was also nominated in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance. Sometime in the 2020s, ranging from 2023 to 2024, the film was added to FAST service Pluto TV in Canada.

XTR is an American independent film production company founded in 2019 by Bryn Mooser. The company is best known for producing films Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado (2020), Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (2020), The Fight (2020), 76 Days (2020), and Ascension (2021).

<i>Frybread Face and Me</i> 2023 film by Billy Luther

Frybread Face and Me is a 2023 American coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Billy Luther. It stars Keir Tallman, Charley Hogan, Sarah H. Natani, Martin Sensmeier, and Kahara Hodges. New Zealand actor and filmmaker Taika Waititi serves as an executive producer.

References

  1. ↑ "Independent Lens . MISS NAVAJO . The Filmmaker | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  2. ↑ Koziol, Leo (2023-09-08). "Navajo Nicknames: Frybread Face and Me filmmaker Billy Luther on cooking up his debut feature • Journal • A Letterboxd Magazine". letterboxd.com. Retrieved 2023-11-27.
  3. 1 2 April 2; Silverstein-Rivera, 2024 | Gabe; Comments, Kirby Ewald |. "Filmmaker Billy Luther Explains How Frybread Face and Me Was a Labor of Love". Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Retrieved 2024-06-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. 1 2 "Billy Luther". Tribeca Film Institute. Archived from the original on 2015-11-21. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  5. ↑ "Contenido" (PDF). Morelia Film Fest. 2007. p. 251. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  6. ↑ Yeahpau, Mandy (2013-11-07). "Billy Luther - Native Arts and Cultures Foundation" . Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  7. 1 2 "Q&A: Native Filmmaker Billy Luther on His Film 'Miss Navajo' - sundance.org". 2011-01-25. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  8. ↑ "Billy Luther – Native Arts and Cultures Foundation". Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. 7 November 2013. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  9. ↑ "MTV's 'Rebel Music' highlights Native Americans". AP News. 2014-11-12. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  10. 1 2 3 "alter-Native". Independent Television Service. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
  11. ↑ Elber, Lynn. "MTV's 'Rebel Music' spotlights Native American artists". The Detroit News. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  12. ↑ Pastoor, Grace (June 27, 2016). "Documentary examines recovery after Red Lake school mass shooting". Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
  13. ↑ "Indie Lens Storycast | PBS". Independent Lens. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  14. ↑ "Indigenous Cultural Appropriation in Fashion with Bethany Yellowtail and James St. James Video Transcript". UA Open Textbooks. University of Arizona. Retrieved June 30, 2024.
  15. ↑ Schilling, Vincent (2020-01-20). "Food that has 'sustained for generations'". ICT News. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  16. ↑ Dominic Patten, "'Frybread Face & Me' Director Billy Luther & EP Taika Waititi On SXSW Debut, Original Stories, 'Star Wars,' Savvy Audiences, & Expanding Horizons". Deadline Hollywood , March 11, 2023.
  17. ↑ Observer, Bernie Dotson, Navajo-Hopi (2022-03-22). "Native filmmaker Billy Luther receives Sundance's Momentum Fellowship". Navajo-Hopi Observer. Retrieved 2024-06-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.