Los Angeles Festival Premiere
DOCUMENTARY SHORT | United States | 12 MINUTES | English, Navajo
Voices of the Grand Canyon
Before the Grand Canyon was a national park, it was the ancestral homeland of Native peoples. But rarely do tourists hear firsthand from modern Indigenous people whose cultures, worldviews, and livelihoods are inextricably tied to the Grand Canyon region. Jim Enote (Zuni), Nikki Cooley (Navajo), Leigh Kuwanwisiwma (Hopi), Coleen Kaska, (Havasupai), Loretta Jackson-Kelly (Hualapai) share what the Grand Canyon means to them and what they know in their hearts to be true. Hear the voices of Grand Canyon speak.
CAST & CREDITS
Directed by Deidra Peaches
Deidra Peaches is a Diné filmmaker, director, cinematographer, editor, and writer. In 2009, her documentary Shimásaní debuted at the Imaginative Film Festival in Toronto, Canada. In 2011, Peaches produced and co-edited The Rocket Boy (2011), an official selection at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, which led Peaches and Jake Hoyungowa (cinematographer) to co-found the independent media company Paper Rocket Productions. In 2013, Paper Rocket Productions released, Tó éí iiná át’é (2013), which premiered in Paris, France for the Festival Ciné Alter’Natif 2012. In 2014, Peaches traveled with photographer Matika Wilbur of Project 562, “Alaska Journey to Celebration,” which documents a 10-day portion of the canoe journey from Kake, Alaska, to Juneau, Alaska. In 2015, Paper Rocket Productions hosted a series of 4 multi-workshops throughout the Navajo Reservation, producing 15 short films, ranging from documentary, to animation, to narrative films. In 2016, Paper Rocket Productions began production on the feature documentary Protect. Protect documents a caravan of Indigenous people and environmental advocates visiting other Native communities impacted by resource extraction as they travel across the United States to Philadelphia during the 2016 Democratic Convention. In 2020, Peaches documented the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic among the Diné (Navajo) populations in the Southwest. That same year, Peaches founded DLP Productions LLC. Recently, Peaches created a series of short documentaries regarding the Grand Canyon and Little Colorado River. Her works are available through the collections, The Voices of Grand Canyon and Lifeways of the Little Colorado River.
Director
Deidra Peaches
Producer
Sarana Riggs
Cast
Jim Enote, Coleen Kaska, Leigh Kuwanwisimwa, Nikki Cooley, Loretta Jackson-Kelly
Program Six
Showtimes
Monday, November 14
IN-PERSON
Screening: 7:00 to 8:00pm