LBJ School News Brief

June 7, 2004

Bird Runningwater photo

Bird Runningwater (left) is shown with New Zealander Taika Waitit (center), whose film “Two Cars, One Night” was screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Also shown is Cliff Curtis, a Maori actor who has appeared in many movies, including “Whale Rider,” “Blow,” “Training Day,” “Three Kings,” “Once Were Warriors” and “The Piano.”

A new voice in American cinema
Bird Runningwater nurtures indigenous filmmakers

This article was reprinted from the spring 2004 edition of The Record

Even the Sundance Institute, which is internationally recognized as a showcase for the best in new American independent film, can benefit from the tool set a student acquires at the LBJ School. Since 2001, N. Bird Runningwater (M.P.Aff. 1996) has been serving as the Institute’s programmer for Native American initiatives in Los Angeles, California.

Runningwater, who is of Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache descent, is responsible for nurturing film projects by Native American and international indigenous filmmakers. He also serves as a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival, which features new talent and filmmaking innovations in categories that include drama and documentary. The film festival is held in Utah each year in January.

“As a program director here at Sundance, my M.P.Aff. comes in very handy, as Sundance is a nonprofit organization,” said Runningwater during a break from his busy schedule. “I manage budgets, do strategic plans, create and modify processes that we have.” But he quickly adds that being indigenous means that the arts and creative expression have always been a part of his life, and “so this job is the perfect balance of working in a purely artistically driven field and utilizing more cerebral elements of my academic training.”

Runningwater, who is a writer and was trained as a journalist, established a connection with the Sundance Institute (founded by Robert Redford in 1981) while serving as a program associate in the Ford Foundation’s Media Arts and Culture Program in 1998. In that job, he built and managed domestic and international funding initiatives focusing on issues within the media, arts and culture fields.

Today, Runningwater is involved in a program that supports new artists with independent voices and promotes a Native American presence within American cinema. In addition to overseeing the programming of the Sundance Film Festival’s Native Forum, he works throughout the year with the Institute’s Feature Film Program, identifying and nurturing indigenous screenwriters and directors. As part of this job he helps with script development and provides production guidance as well as funding and distribution information.

According to Runningwater, the script selections are based on originality, risk-taking, artistry and personal voice. “Most of our work is character driven, more so than genre driven, and it is deeply entrenched in the personal voice of the film artist,” he said. “Most of the films we work with are low budget, independently financed projects that would be passed over by the larger studio system. These are very specific and focused on telling rich stories with fresh characters from diverse viewpoints.”

Because his program is involved with indigenous artists from around the world, Runningwater travels often. Last summer, during a five-month break from film festival duties, he was in New Zealand, Hawaii and Australia working on the production team for a Geoff Murphy film. The film is a drama thriller called “Spooked,” which is currently in postproduction.

In October, the Native American Initiatives Program was singled out by the Producers’ Guild of America for its efforts in supporting diversity in the industry. “I was lucky to accept the award along with Salma Hayek for her work in producing ‘Frida’ and John Singleton for ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’,” Runningwater said.

He noted that the Sundance Film Festival is important because this is the only American screening for many of these films. “Some do not get picked up by distributors. There are other festivals in New York, San Francisco and other places where a lot of these films do the ‘festival circuit.’ One good thing is that in 2002, there were three indigenous-made films distributed in American theaters, the most ever, and two of those had their world premieres at Sundance.”

Runningwater, who was raised on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, first attended the LBJ School as a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation’s National Fellowships in Public Policy and International Affairs. He is also an alumnus of the Americans for Indian Opportunity Ambassadors Program and the Kellogg Fellows Program.

He has served as producer, director and writer for a number of film and television projects and has served as the executive director of the Fund of the Four Directions, which supports the revitalization of the languages and culture of North America’s indigenous peoples. He is also a former program associate in the Ford Foundation’s Media, Arts and Culture Program.

Currently, Runningwater serves on the board of Native American Public Telecommunications and the national editorial board for YES! A Journal of Positive Futures. He also serves as an advisor for IFP/Los Angeles’ Project: Involve, a program that promotes diversity in the film industry. Most recently, he was featured and profiled in The Color of Our Future, a book written by political commentator Farai Chideya. The book analyzes the lives of today’s diverse teens and twenty-somethings and has been featured in college curricula across the country, including Duke, Syracuse and Stanford Universities.

by María de la Luz Martínez

Sundance Institute's Native American Initiative

"Smoke Signals"
By N. Bird Runningwater
Yes! Magazine, Winter 1998-99

Terrelene Gene Reflects on Graduation and Future Prospects with Navajo Nation
By Mary Lenz
On Campus, May 15, 2001

7 June 2004

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