Then, on Sunday night, June 7, at Harkins Theatres in Sedona, two sets of Native American Films will be featured. At 6:30 p.m., the feature film Before Tomorrow will be preceded by Sandpainting Healing with Walking Thunder.

Set in 1840, Before Tomorrow is the story of an Inuit woman who demonstrates that human dignity is at the core of life from beginning to end, as she faces with her grandson the ultimate challenge of survival. The film was shot in remote locations near the community of Puvirnituq, Nunavik (northern Quebec) over four separate periods in order to capture the seasons from June through December.

In Sandpainting Healing with Walking Thunder, traditional Navajo medicine woman, Walking Thunder, tells her life story and describes her healing methods using native plants, sand paintings, and other medicinal ways. As a practitioner of the peyote ceremony, she shares her indigenous understanding of the world of spirits evoked by this botanical sacrament.

At 9 p.m. two films will be brought back by popular demand from our recent Sedona International Film Festival: American Outrage and Che Ah Chi: The History of Boynton Canyon.

In American Outrage, Carrie and Mary Dann are feisty elderly Western Shoshone sisters who live and ranch in north central Nevada. They have always grazed their livestock on the range outside their ranch, land recognized by the U.S. as Western Shoshone in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. In 1974, the U.S. sued the Dann sisters for trespassing on U.S. public land without a permit. Their dispute swept to the U. S. Supreme Court and eventually to the United Nations. Contrasting the Dann’s personal lives and political actions, the film examines why the United States would spend millions prosecuting two elderly women grazing a few hundred horses and cows.

CHE AH CHI, the Apache name for a mysterious red rock canyon near Sedona is a place of ancient stories. The film features interviews with tribal elders who reveal stories usually reserved for their own storytelling circles.  The elders offer deep insights into their respective cultures, detailing the sorrow of forced removal from their homelands, and demonstrating a cultural wisdom able to embrace all those that can respect the sacred canyon.

Tickets for the Friday and Sunday night films are $10 ($8 for Film Sedona members). Tickets for the Dinner and a Movie with Michael Blake are $75.

All tickets are available at the Sedona Film Festival office or online at www.FestivalofNativeAmericanCulture.org. To reserve your tickets or for more information, call the festival office at 928-282-1177 or visit www.sedonafilmfestival.com.

Article courtesy of Patrick Schweiss.

Posted May 28, 2009.