Today we honor Chris Eyre, an award winning director and producer, and according to People Magazine, the “Preeminent Native American filmmaker of his time.” Mr. Eyre was born in 1968 and is a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He received his big break in 1998 with his directorial debut of Smoke Signals, the first feature-length film directed by a Native American to receive nat...ional theatrical release by a major distributor - Miramax Films. Smoke Signals became one the highest-grossing independent films of the year and it won the Audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. Mr. Eyre has continued to captivate audiences with his depictions of life for Native Americans. Mr. Eyre’s won a Directors Guild of American Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for his 2004 film Edge of America and in 2007 he was selected for two prestigious artist awards – the United States Artists Fellowship and the Bush Foundation Artists Fellowship in Film/Media for his work. Recently, he has directed A Thousand Roads for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, three episodes for the PBS miniseries We Shall Remain and select episodes of Friday Night Lights and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In February of 2012, Mr. Eyre was appointed chair of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design’s Moving Image Arts Department.

To view the Smoke Signals preview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4GthKmraXQSee More