Native American Writers
These are Native Writers who are WGA members or Caucus members.
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Sierra Teller Ornelas is known for Superstore (2015), Rutherford Falls (2021) and Splitting Up Together (2018).- Writer
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Lucas Brown Eyes is an Oglala Lakota writer. His family moved to California so he could study film and television at Orange County High School of the Arts. He would then get a film degree from USC. In 2014 he was accepted into the ABC Disney Writing Program and soon started writing for shows like Young & Hungry and KC Undercover.- Writer
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Marilyn Thomas is an award winning screenwriter and producer. After graduating Vancouver Film School's intensive Writing for Film and Television Program she was awarded the BC Film Story Department Internship for Da Vinci's Inquest. She returned the next year and also had the opportunity to co-write Fleas under the guidance of Chris Haddock.
Her short films have garnered her screenwriting awards, Including "Sxwexwatamsh", "Shi-Shi-Etko", "The Secret Life Of Cassandra Brown" and "JACK", which not only won Best Script, in the Bloodshots 48hr Horror Competition, but also Best Death and the Grand Jury Prize, as judged by Dan O'Bannon, shortly before his passing.
Marilyn's interest in digital media and how it affects storytelling led her to work on two webseries, "The Adventures of Little Jake and Many Skies", accompanied by a digital game, "All in A Hay's Work"; as well as the language preservation series "Our First Voices".
Working with Rival Schools, an innovative digital media company, they created "Brambleberry Tales", a series of interactive e-book experiences based on traditional Indigenous stories. The first two books released were both selected as iTunes editor's choice. The third book is set to release spring 2014.
Marilyn is now anticipating the release of her documentary "Path of Pilgrims", airing May 2014. She has again partnered up with Rival Schools to create an interactive component to accompany the documentary.
Marilyn still strives to tell stories in traditional formats and is developing feature screenplays with different companies. She hopes to get back to her love of horror and action, while continuing to explore alternative ways to enhance the story experience.- Director
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Nanobah Becker is known for Conversion (2006), Laura Ortman: I Lost My Shadow (2011) and Flat (2005).- Writer
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Steven Paul Judd is known for Search for the World's Best Indian Taco (2010), Dark Winds (2022) and Echo (2023).- Additional Crew
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Kelly Lynne D'Angelo is a Native Haudenosaunee comedy, musical, animation, and fantasy writer based out of Los Angeles. In her non-existent free time, Kelly also writes stage musicals and plays Dungeons & Dragons professionally (she kids you not). Recent writing credits include MIRACLE WORKERS (TBS), TIG N' SEEK (HBO Max), and FINAL SPACE (Adult Swim).- Writer
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Greg Sarris is known for Grand Avenue (1996), Joan Baez I Am a Noise (2023) and California and the American Dream (2005).- Producer
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Tazbah Chavez is known for Reservation Dogs (2021), Rutherford Falls (2021) and Your Name Isn't English (2018).- Director
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Ian Skorodin graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and began his directing career with an award winning feature film, entitled TUSHKA, based on the murder of a Native American activist's family. After premiering at Sundance in 1998, TUSHKA went on to win Best Feature at the Arizona International Film Festival. In 2000, TUSHKA was distributed to DirecTV for domestic television distribution.
Skorodin moved into television and is developing the series JEW IN CHOCTAW COUNTRY. Skorodin also directs an animation series CRAZY IND'N, a stop motion animation television series. CRAZY IND'N went on to screen in England, Finland, and New York. CRAZY IND'N was distributed to Aboriginal People's Television Network in Canada and DishNetwork in the United States.
Skorodin's other work includes two live action film and television projects. WALKING ON TURTLE ISLAND is a privately financed series set in the 1880's starring Tantoo Cardinal and Saginaw Grant. It premiered at the 2009 Ashland International Film Festival and has screened in England, Australia and numerous other festivals. In addition, Skorodin is currently developing TEN LITTLE INDIANS, a feature length movie about Indians in prison.
Skorodin directed The Homestead, a first hand account of the Choctaw survivors of the Trail of Tears and Ramona Band of Cahuilla, a historical documentary based on the Ramona Band of Cahuilla Indians. Both documentaries are distributed widely in educational institutions and tribal organizations.
Skorodin has directed two commercials for Native owned DSL company Mescalero Apache Telecom Inc. These commercials were used to advertise on television, at business conferences and for training facilities. His commercial directing work also includes promotionals for Rock the Vote and Univision.
Skorodin works extensively in the Native American community of Los Angeles. Skorodin operates a video production company, Barcid Productions, and it's non-profit sister company, the Barcid Foundation. The production company has worked closely with the Native American community of Los Angeles providing multimedia production for First Americans in the Arts, Native Voices at the Autry, and the Southern California Indian Center, Inc.
The Barcid Foundation was created to offer more opportunities in the entertainment industry. The foundation formed a film festival, a youth film workshop program, and a scholarship fund. The film festival works closely with the networks and studios to offer more opportunities to Native Americans in entertainment. These opportunities include a sketch comedy showcase for Native American actors sponsored by FOX, a writers group for Native writers provided by the Writers Guild of America and a directors workshop sponsored by CBS. The youth workshop is an intensive week-long production program that teaches Native American youth to produce three to four short films. Skorodin has taught film workshops in Los Angeles, on reservations in Oklahoma, California, Arizona and two reserves in Canada.
Skorodin is a 2009 NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) Fellow and attended the 2008 National Black Programming Consortium's New Media Institute Conference in Washington D.C. In 2002, Skorodin attended the PBS Producer's Conference as part of the Producer's Academy scholar's program. Skorodin won a grant from Native American Public Television and SE-TV in South Carolina to attend the INPUT Television Conference in Rotterdam Holland. Skorodin also attended the 2002 Sundance Producer's conference funded by a Sundance fellowship. Skorodin is the winner of the American Indian Film Institute's Horizon Award, First Americans in the Arts' Trustee Award, and KCET's Community Leadership Award.- Writer
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Sterlin Harjo is known for Reservation Dogs (2021), Barking Water (2009) and Osiyo, Voices of the Cherokee People (2015).- Actress
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Georgina Lightning brings a long track record of creative experience in the film industry as an actor, producer, director and acting coach on such projects as: Dreamkeepers, Backroads, Johnny Greyeyes, Christmas in the Clouds, Tecumseh, the Oath and Smoke Signals among countless others. Lightning has also guest starred in T.V. episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger and West Wing.
Lightning's directorial debut Older Than America has won over 23 awards to date and is inspired by stories told to her by many of her family members and friends who attended the Indian Boarding schools. Most recently Lightning co-founded Tribal Alliance Productions, a production company committed to producing media that matters told from a native prospective. A long time advocate of Native Indian advancement in the film industry, Lightning also formed Native Media Network, a group dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Native Indian talent.- Actress
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Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers is a writer, director, producer and actor. She is a member of the Kainai First Nation (Blood Tribe, Blackfoot Confederacy) as well as Sámi from Norway.
Her short documentary Bihttos was included in the 2015 TIFF Top Ten Shorts and was commissioned for the imagineNATIVE Embargo Collective. Bihttos won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short at the Seattle International Film Festival.
With The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, she made her feature co-directorial debut (alongside Kathleen Hepburn), as well as starring-in and co-writing. Taking its title from an essay by Cree poet Billy-Ray Belcourt, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, is based on a true-chance encounter between Tailfeathers and another Indigenous woman. Premiering at the Berlinale in 2019, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open received the Toronto Film Critics Association and Vancouver Film Critics Circle' awards for Best Canadian Feature Film. The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open was also nominated for six Canadian Screen Awards, and Tailfeathers and Hepburn received the CSAs for best direction and best original screenplay.
Hailed as one of "... the most important film[s] about addiction to date ..." by the Vancouver International Film Festival, her latest feature documentary Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy is an intimate portrait of survival, love and the collective work of healing in the Kainai First Nation in Southern Alberta, a Blackfoot community facing the impacts of substance use and a drug-poisoning epidemic, where community members active in addiction and recovery, first responders and medical professionals implement harm reduction to save lives. Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy premiered at the 2021 Hot Docs International Documentary Festival and received a Roger's Audience Choice Award as well as the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award for Tailfeathers. Since it's premiere, Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy and Tailfeathers have received the Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director at DOXA 2021, the Audience Choice Award for a Canadian Documentary at the 2021 Calgary International Film Festival, the Co-winner, Inspiring Voices & Perspectives Feature Film Award at Cinéfest Sudbury, and the 2022 Canadian Screen Award for the Ted Rogers Best Canadian Feature Documentary.
Her acting credits include roles in; Jeff Barnaby's Blood Quantum, Canadian Screen Award winning performance in Danis Goulet's Night Raiders, Canadian Screen Award nominated performance in The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, Canadian Screen Award winning performance in Rachel Talalay's Unclaimed, the soon to be released Stellar by Darlene Naponse, and the upcoming Amazon/Left Bank Pictures series Three Pines.
In 2018 Elle-Máijá was the Sundance Film Institute's Merata Mita Film Fellow and is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Lab and the Hot Docs Accelerator Lab. Elle-Máijá is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, the Director's Guild of Canada, UBCP/ACTRA, and the Documentary Organization of Canada.- Producer
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