Details about this year’s SuperFly

This just in from our friends (and tenants) Longhouse Media, who present with SIFF the SuperFly Filmmaking Workshops during the festival.  This year they are bringing in filmmaker Peter Bratt for the occasion (and it happens that we’ll be showing his film La Mission while he is here – get your tickets in advance!).  Here’s more:

The Seattle International Film Festival, in partnership with Longhouse Media, is extremely
pleased to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the SuperFly Filmmaking Workshop, an exceptional program in
which young filmmakers are brought together and asked to collaboratively comment on their world using
multimedia and digital tools. Beginning on June 3, 50 young filmmakers from around the country will convene
in Seattle to participate in SuperFly 2010, the annual 36-hour filmmaking workshop organized by Longhouse
Media. Each year, SuperFly takes place within a Pacific Northwest Native American community, and this year,
the Lummi Nation is the program host.

After being divided into five teams, the filmmakers will be provided with an original script crafted by Peter Bratt,
the director of the award winning film La Mission (SIFF 2009). Bratt, recently honored for his artistic genius with
a 2000 Rockefeller Foundation Film/Video/Multimedia Fellowship, is poised to become one of the 21st
Century’s major filmmakers. This year’s script is a reflective piece, exploring the theme “Inside Out.” Each team
will have less than two days to storyboard, shoot, and edit their films, which will then premiere four hours after
completion at SIFF’s FutureWave Shorts screening on June 5 at the Egyptian Theatre at 4:00pm.

“Each year SuperFly gets better and better. It might be that after five years we have got this event down, but it
is more likely that itʼs the excitement that has been building amongst the students and participants year after
year, who bring their talents and skills, ready to share and collaborate,” says Tracy Rector, Executive Director
of Longhouse Media. And in addition Artistic Director, Annie Silverstein has this to say, “We are looking forward
to welcoming a very gifted and talented crew of participants from all across the country (including New York,
North Carolina, Minnesota, Arizona, New Mexico and California) to the Fifth annual SuperFly Filmmaking
Workshop this year. It will undoubtedly be one of the best yet.”

Previous SuperFly films (based on scripts by Sherman Alexie, Sterlin Harjo, and Princess Lucaj) have played
at festivals around the country, inspiring other communities to use digital media for education and social
activism. SuperFly has caught the attention of many youth media organizations and national media centers,
including the Smithsonian Museum’s media initiatives, Sundance programmers, and National Geographicʼs All
Roads Film Festival.

“SuperFly is a program which is often imitated around the country but the resounding success that has built
over the past five years is unparalleled. It is a testament to the exceptional work and growth of Longhouse
Media,” states SIFF Educational Programs Coordinator Dustin Kaspar. “The Fifth Annual SuperFly Filmmaking
Workshop screening on June 5 will be pure electricity. The participants and the audience will enjoy seeing
these future filmmakers flexing their artistic voices.”

Previous SuperFly films (based on scripts by Sherman Alexie, Sterlin Harjo, and Princess Lucaj) have played
at festivals around the country, inspiring other communities to use digital media for education and social
activism. SuperFly has caught the attention of many youth media organizations and national media centers,
including the Smithsonian Museum’s media initiatives, Sundance programmers, and National Geographicʼs All
Roads Film Festival.

“SuperFly is a program which is often imitated around the country but the resounding success that has built
over the past five years is unparalleled. It is a testament to the exceptional work and growth of Longhouse
Media,” states SIFF Educational Programs Coordinator Dustin Kaspar. “The Fifth Annual SuperFly Filmmaking
Workshop screening on June 5 will be pure electricity. The participants and the audience will enjoy seeing
these future filmmakers flexing their artistic voices.”

SuperFly is a part of SIFF FutureWave: Expanding Cinema Through Education, empowering youth to work
collaboratively, communicate their ideas, exercise their potential, and take action in their communities.  The
program encompasses youth-oriented films and youth-directed short films; film education outreach that brings
Festival guest directors and actors into classrooms for film screenings, discussions, Q&As, and workshops. It
also brings students to the Festival through school screenings in an effort to afford students the experience of
film in the Festival setting. In addition, SIFF FutureWave provides curriculum and professional development for
teachers across the academic spectrum to support using film in the classroom. Last year, SIFF FutureWave
programs engaged more than 5,000 youth aged 18 and under with the Festival experience and a deeper
appreciation of the art of film.

SuperFly World premieres at the beginning of the SIFF 2010 FutureWave Shorts—featuring short films
from filmmakers 18 and under—June 5 at 4:00pm at the Egyptian Theatre.

What is Fly Filmmaking?
Fly Filmmaking is an extremely artistic, creative, and stimulating form of filmmaking. Because of the incredibly
short duration of time allotted to the filmmakers and actors, this process can be referred to as “on the fly,”
hence the name: Fly Filmmaking.

For more information on SuperFly, please contact press@siff.net, or Tracy Rector, Longhouse Media
Executive Director, at nativelens@mac.com, or visit: http://www.longhousemedia.org.

ABOUT LONGHOUSE MEDIA

The mission of Longhouse Media is to catalyze Indigenous people and communities to use media as a tool for self-
expression, cultural preservation, and social change. Longhouse Media draws from traditional and modern forms of artistic
expression, storytelling, teaching and inquiry, based in the technologies of today. NATIVE LENS is a program of
LONGHOUSE MEDIA, which supports the growth and expression of Indigenous youth through digital media making.  In
only four short years Longhouse Media has worked with nearly 600 youth from Washington State, across the country and
now internationally with students from Switzerland, Morocco and Serbia.  Their work can be found at numerous festivals,
on National Public Television, with National Geographic and in public school systems and tribal schools across the
country.

As a Native organization, Longhouse Media works to teach Native youth the skills necessary to tell their own stories
through digital media.  As a production house Longhouse Media also creates and designs films and filmmaking
experiences to bring about awareness and understanding of the Indigenous people of this land. Longhouse Media created
the SuperFly Filmmaking Experience to not only teach Native youth but to work with a diverse collection of experienced
young filmmakers who collaborate and learn the art of digital story telling, while based in a Native community. The first
SuperFly was hosted by the Swinomish Indian Tribe. For many of the non-Native youth it was their first time on a
reservation. For more information about Longhouse Media please visit http://www.longhousemedia.org.

The 36th Seattle International Film Festival is made possible in part by support from Comcast, The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation,
Brotherton Cadillac Buick GMC, Alaska Airlines, Don Q Rums, The Wallace Foundation, Wong Doody, American Airlines, Modern
Digital, POP, and City Arts Magazine. Additional support for SuperFly Filmmaking Challenge comes from 4Culture, Washington State
Arts Commission, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, Longhouse Media, NWFF, All Roads Film Project, The Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, The Lummi Nation, 1st Nations Development, Tulalip Tribes, Squaxin Island Tribe, and dgtl/nvjo.

The March Point Controversy

Our friends over at Longhouse Media found themselves victims of image theft that was used in racist attacks against native youth in Canada. The above image from Longhouse’s award winning film MARCH POINT apeared in a UsedWinnipeg.com ad headlined “Native Extraction Service” with a photograph of three young native boys.The service offered to round up and remove First Nations youth like wild animals, and “relocate them to their habitat.”  The ad read: “Have you ever had the experience of getting home to find those pesky little buggers hanging outside your home, in the back alley or on the corner??? Well fear no more, with my service I will simply do a harmless relocation. With one phone call I will arrive and net the pest, load them in the containment unit (pickup truck) and then relocate them to their habit.”  Read more about this horrendous act against native youth here.

Canoe Way: The Sacred Journey

Puyallup Canoe Family

Screening February 20, 2010 @ 5:00 pm Northwest Film Forum (Director and some Puyallup Canoe Family participants in attendance)

Each summer, tribes and First Nations from Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska, follow their ancestral pathways – traveling hundreds of miles through the waters of Puget Sound, Inside Passage and the Northwest Coast during the event known as Tribal Journeys. Families and youth reconnect with the past and with each other. Ancient songs, dances, regalia, ceremonies, and language that were almost lost, are coming back.

Witness the contemporary resurgence of the cedar canoe societies and how it has opened a spiritual path of healing through tradition for Coast Salish Native Americans. This inspiring 54-minute documentary contains interviews with elders and youth, songs and dances from tribal canoe families, and powerful canoe ceremonies.

Indigenous Showcase

Northwest Film Forum partners with Longhouse Media and National Geographic All Roads Film Project to present a monthly series showcasing emerging talents in indigenous communities. This exciting program exemplifies how Native American and indigenous filmmakers are at the forefront of the industry, successfully establishing a dialogue and creating images that are challenging and changing long established cultural attitudes towards indigenous culture. For more film information and show-times, please check http://www.nwfilmforum.org