American indigenous film expert joins Borneo Eco Film Festival
KOTA KINABALU: Noted Native American and indigenous film expert, Bird Runningwater of the Sundance Institute, will be speaking at the 2015 Borneo Eco Film Festival (BEFF), which runs from today, October 2 to 4 at the National Culture and Art Department (JKKN) Sabah Auditorium.
Runningwater, who is based in Los Angeles, is the director of the prestigious Sundance Institute’s Native American and Indigenous Program. This week, he will be in Kota Kinabalu to speak at the Borneo Eco Film Festival and lend his expertise in filmmaking during the Suara Komuniti Filmmaking Workshops at JKKN Sabah.
“We are extremely honoured and privileged to have someone of his caliber at this year’s festival. Our Suara Komuniti Filmmaking workshop participants are excited to have him share his knowledge and expertise,” said Dr Agnes Agama, co-founder of the Borneo Eco Film Festival.
She added Runningwater’s involvement in the film festival was ideal given the parallel between scenarios facing Sabah’s indigenous communities with that of Native Americans and indigenous peoples the world over.
“One of the key objectives of Suara is to encourage our local people to share their stories and find their unique suara or voice through filmmaking. It will be good to gain an insight on other indigenous storytelling styles and approaches to further inspire our budding filmmakers,” said Dr Agama.
During his time with BEFF, Runningwater – who belongs to the Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache peoples and reared on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, USA – will be talking about the Sundance Institute (at 8.30pm today) and introducing several short films by award-winning Native American and indigenous filmmakers on both Friday and Saturday night. He will also be giving a brief talk on Indigenous Filmmaking on Saturday night at 8pm. Admission is free.
Several students of University College Sabah Foundation (UCSF) and members of Filmcamp KK will also have the privilege of spending an afternoon with Runningwater during a closed-session talk and discussion on filmmaking during the BEFF weekend.
Highly sought after for his skills and knowledge, Runningwater has hosted workshops and been featured on panels ranging from the Sundance Film Festival’s “From Oral Tradition to the Screen: Indigenous Screenwriting” to “A Conversation with Merata Mita” at the Messagesticks Festival held at the Sydney Opera House in Australia.
He was a panelist at the Raising Voices Conference, hosted by the Hubert Bals Fund at the Rotterdam Film Festival, exploring training programs that will stimulate the next generation of culturally distinctive and authentic filmmaking voices.
Runningwater has served on competition film juries for film festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival (Germany), São Paolo International Film Festival (Brazil), Sydney Film Festival (Australia), Guanajuato International Film Festival (Mexico) and Cinemalaya Film Festival (Philippines).
The festival is an annual event that celebrates Borneo’s bio-cultural diversity by showcasing environmental films and nurturing local community filmmaking. The three-day festival begins today and all 17 specially selected films featured will be screened free for members of the public.
BEFF main festival partners are the Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry of Sabah, Bursa Malaysia and The Bursa Bull Charge, US Embassy Kuala Lumpur, Resource Development and Information Technology Ministry and JKKN.
It is also supported by Borneo Eco Tours, Borneo Nature Tours, Hotel Sixty3, Kinabalu Daya Hotel, Lembaga Penapisan Filem Malaysia, Perbadanan Filem Nasional Malaysia, Sabah State Library, WWF Malaysia, Sticky Rice Travel, Filmcamp and University College Sabah Foundation.
For full listings and show times, please visit the Borneo Eco Film Festival page on Facebook or www.beff.org.my
Source: Borneo Post
