CAST
Brenda Kay Newman
Sa'
Margaret Henry John
Ch'idzigyaak
Galen Gilbert
Chief Dajalti'
CREW
Princess Daazhraii Johnson
Director
Princess Daazhraii Johnson (she/her) is a Neet'saii Gwich'in storyteller based on Lower Tanana Dene lands in Alaska. A writer, director, producer, and actor, she centers Indigenous voices through powerful narratives rooted in cultural knowledge, values, and traditions. Johnson is a producer on the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning True Detective: Night Country
and an Emmy-nominated writer and creative producer for Molly of Denali on PBS Kids. Her directorial work includes Gath & K’iyh: Listen to Heal and This Is a Story About Salmon. She serves on the boards of Native Movement and NDN Collective, and was appointed by President Obama to the IAIA Board of Trustees.
Sheldon Chau
Director of Photography
Born in the San Gabriel Valley (near Los Angeles, CA) of Cantonese descent, Sheldon discovered as a teenager that movies were more than simply entertainment when his uncle introduced him to the Criterion Collection, which sparked his pursuit of filmmaking. His first project after college was a short documentary on his father where he learned of his parents' journey to the U.S. from fleeing Vietnam after the war. This experience affirmed Sheldon's passion for storytelling, and he went on to earn his MFA in directing and cinematography at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.
Sheldon's work has screened at major festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, and Venice. His notable credits as cinematographer include "Nafi's Father" - Senegal's official entry for the 2021 Oscars; "Nigerian Prince" - an AT&T Untold Stories winner and Tribeca Film Fest premiere; and "Summer Knight" - Best Film at the Tokyo Film Fest . He is a winner of the Arri-Volker Bahnemann Award for Cinematography, a Visual Communications' AWC Fellow, and part of the ASC Vision Mentorship program under Larry Fong, ASC. As a director, his short film Flying Eggs was a 2021 Slamdance Film Fest selection and his latest work In Max We Trust can be seen on YouTube's Omeleto short film channel.
Sheldon has specialized in shooting internationally, balancing both large-scaled and guerrilla-style crews, and continues to seek stories that are evocative, personal, and emotionally resonant.
Stephanie Filo
Editor
Stephanie Filo, ACE is a four-time Emmy, as well as Peabody and ACE Eddie Award-winning Film/Television Editor and activist based in Los Angeles, CA and Sierra Leone, West Africa. She serves on the board for Girls Empowerment Sierra Leone, a social impact and feminist-based organization for Sierra Leonean girls aged 11-16. She is one of the co-founders of End Ebola Now, an organization created in 2014 to spread accurate information and awareness about the Ebola Virus and its impact through artistic community activism.
Aside from editing television and film, Stephanie spends much of her spare time producing and editing social action campaigns and documentaries, primarily focused on the rights of women and girls worldwide. Some of her notable campaigns include her work with the United Nations, International Labour Organization, and the Obama White House Task Force's It's On Us campaign to combat campus sexual assault. Her charitable work has been featured in Forbes Magazine, Entertainment Tonight, Telegraph UK, Yahoo, Al Jazeera, XWhy Magazine, and various others. Her work on the news documentary series "Mental State" earned her an Emmy nomination for the episode "Aging Out" about youth aging out of the American foster care system. She earned an Emmy win for her editing on the Mental State episode "Separated" which covered ICE deportations, making herself and Nzinga Blake the first Sierra Leonean women to ever win an Emmy award. In 2021, she won a Primetime Emmy award for her work on HBO's "A Black Lady Sketch Show", making her team the first all-Women of Color editing team to take home the award for Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming. In 2022, she made history again as a member of the first all-black editing team to be nominated for and win both an Emmy and an ACE Eddie for "A Black Lady Sketch Show". In 2023, she made history again, as the first Picture Editor and first Black editor to ever be Emmy nominated for 3 different series at the same time. Most recently, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her work on the film "We Grown Now".
Mali Obomsawin
Music
Mali Obomsawin is an accomplished genre-fluid bassist, composer, vocalist and proud citizen of the Odanak First Nation. Obomsawin’s increasingly broad body of work spans jazz and roots music, indie rock and experimental sound, all of which are incorporated into her compositions. An international touring artist and celebrated accompanist, her current projects include her shoegaze duo Deerlady, the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band and her eponymous free-jazz ensemble. Obomsawin’s expansive and nuanced practice models 21st century Indigeneity, challenging listeners’ complacency with the urgency of our times while comforting with lush– and at times haunting– harmonies.
Heather Ray
Producer
Heather Rae has produced such films as Academy Award nominated Frozen River, Netflix Originals Tallulah starring Elliot Page and Allison Janney, Dude starring Lucy Hale and Austin Butler, festival darling I Believe in Unicorns, award-winning The Dry Land with America Ferrera and and Cannes premiering Bull with Rob Morgan. Most recently Rae produced Fancy Dance starring Oscar-nominee Lily Gladstone, an Apple Film release. Rae has been recognized as one of Variety’s Producers to Watch and won the Piaget and Cinereach Producers Awards. She is a member of the Academy and serves on the Producers Branch Executive Committee as well as a member of the newly formed Producers United. Rae is currently in a First Look deal with Amazon Studios and is an Executive Producer on series, Outer Range starring Josh Brolin. For six years Rae was a Narrative Change Strategist with IllumiNative and throughout her thirty year career has worked to support emerging talent.
Jason Ryle
Producer
Jason Ryle is an independent producer, curator and story editor, and the International Programmer for Australia, New Zealand, and Global Indigenous Cinema at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Through his mother, he is Anishinaabe and a member of Obushkudayang/Lake St. Martin First Nation in Manitoba, and has spent his career working within the Indigenous media arts community. From July 2010 to June 2020, Jason was the Executive Director of imagineNATIVE, an Indigenous-run organization mandated to support Indigenous filmmakers and media artists. In this capacity, Jason oversaw all operational and artistic activities of the annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival, the world’s largest showcase of Indigenous screen content. From 2013 until 2020, he was an Advisor for Indigenous films at the Berlinale, and from 2015 to 2020 he oversaw the Indigenous Cinema stand at the European Film Market. In February 2021, Jason received the Clyde Gilmour Award from the Toronto Film Critics Association. The award is bestowed to Canadians whose work has in some way enriched the understanding and appreciation of film in their native country.
Jodi Archambault
Executive Producer
Jodi Archambault, Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota, is an acclaimed advocate and originative solutionist who applies a transformative lens —whether in policy, art, or activism— to drive the visibility of, expand understanding about and maximize impact and opportunity for Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous rights. Jodi’s life and mission are grounded in the harmony of relationships and Indigenous ways of life, which is why she founded ANPO, an organization that focuses on the deep interconnectedness of Indigenous lands, languages, and cultures.
Beverly Morris
Executive Producer
Beverly Morris is a Producer/Director and owner of Chain Reaction Productions, a Native American film company that develops, produces and directs video projects for and about Native American People. She was one of the founders of Native Images, a video production center at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She served as the Director of the Summer Film and Television Workshop at the Institute of American Indian Arts in collaboration with the Walt Disney Studios/ABC Entertainment Talent Development Programs. Ms. Morris produced and directed Dancing with Photons, profile of Navajo physicist, Dr. Fred Begay, and produced Looking Toward Home, a one-hour program about Native American people living in urban areas. Ms. Morris produced the pilot for a ten episode PBS series Growing Native, co-produced by KNME TV-5 and Native American Public Telecommunications. She is currently in the post-production phase of Chasing My DNA: Travels From the Steppes of Mongolian to Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Ms. Morris serves on the Institute of American Indian Arts Board of Trustees. Ms. Morris is a member of the Qawalangin Tribe (Aleut) of Unalaska, Alaska and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
Tracy Rector
Executive Producer
Tracy Rector is an Emmy award-winning artist passionate in amplifying and uplifting Indigenous and other BIPOC creatives. She has two decades of experience as a community organizer, educator, filmmaker, film programmer, and arts curator, all infused with her deep roots in plant medicine. Tracy has directed and produced over 400 films including shorts, features, music videos, and virtual reality projects. Her work has been featured with Independent Lens, imagineNATIVE, Sundance, Cannes, and Toronto. Tracy sits on the boards of Working Films and Multitude Films. She is also the founder of 4th World Media Lab – now in its tenth cohort season.