Native woman shares filmmaking journey
FRIDAY, 29 MAY 2020 03:56 BY CODY BEGAYE SUN CORRESPONDENT
The path of a filmmaker is one many people dream of taking, but it is a steep climb, one that requires dedication and attention to detail. It is a challenge that Deidra Peaches was willing to tackle.
Hailing from Flagstaff, Ariz., Peaches is Todích’íí’nii, or Bitter Water, and was born for Lók’aa’ dine’é, or Reed People. She is a self-taught, full-time filmmaker who has devoted her time and effort to documentary filmmaking since 2011.
On her website, Peaches states she has reclaimed her identity and cultural understanding through filmmaking. The amount of Native-produced media available today “has enabled Native filmmakers to be included in contemporary conversations where their voices are usually absent.”
The Sun spoke with Peaches May 20 about her recent work covering the global pandemic, as well as the rest of her filmography.
Filmmaker Deidra Peaches on indigenous representation, creating conversations
GABRIEL GRANILLO
Deidra Peaches has been making films since middle school. Raised in Flagstaff, she met fellow filmmakers Donavan Seschillie and Jake Hoyungowa in grade school where they’d make shorts inspired by Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. That passion flourished in high school, and she eventually brought her talents to Northern Arizona University’s School of Communication where she made her first documentary "Shimásání," about her grandmother.
As a director, producer, editor and writer, Peaches has worked on a number of films, and in 2011 she produced and co-edited “The Rocket Boy” with Seschillie. The film was an official selection at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival later that year. That same year, Peaches, Seschillie and Hoyungowa started Paper Rocket Productions, an independent media company with a focus on indigenous communities. Peaches is currently working on her feature documentary “Protect.”
Bañalas, Xamuel. “Paper Rocket Productions: A Decolonizing Epistemology of Young Indigenous Filmmakers.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society . Vol. 3, No. 2, 2014, pp. 152- 166
PAper Rocket Productions: A decolonizing epistemology of young Indigenous filmmakers
XAMUEL BAÑALES
This interview explores the significance of Paper Rocket Productions—an independent film company co-founded by young Indigenous filmmakers in Northern Arizona, USA. The author highlights why their artistic works are exceptional, followed by a discussion with two of the filmmakers and co-founders of the enterprise. The conversation brings attention to their filmmaking, primarily to the forthcoming feature-length documentary Water is Life - Tó éí ’iiná até. This film reveals how the industrialization of the Navajo Nation negatively affects the sacredness of water and traditional ways of life, and the interview calls attention to how Paper Rocket Productions relates and contributes to a decolonizing epistemology.
Navajo young people learn how to use film, photography and music to tell stories
NOEL LYN SMITH
SHIPROCK — Navajo young people are learning skills to produce short films, photography and music through a weeklong workshop by Paper Rocket Productions.The workshop, which started Monday at the Shiprock Youth Complex, is teaching students the techniques to develop, produce and edit short films. Paper Rocket Productions is an independent film company based in Flagstaff, Ariz.
The company is presenting four multimedia workshops across the reservation. The first class was on June 15 in Kayenta, Ariz. The next class is July 6-9 in Shonto, Ariz., and the final session is July 13-16 at the Huerfano Youth Center in Huerfano.
Deidra Peaches, who co-founded the company with Jake Hoyungowa, was working with a group on its animation project. Some of the students huddled around a computer and watched their illustrations appear on the screen after being scanned. They will use their pictures to animate the story they developed, Peaches said while watching them work.
REFUSING NOSTALGIA: THREE INDIGENOUS FILMMAKERS’NEGOTIATIONS OF IDENTITY
Burglund, Jeff. “Refusing Npstalgia: three Indigenous Filmmakers’ Negotiations of Identity .” The Politics of Identity: Emerging Indigeneity (2013): 158–208. Print.
This chapter focuses on such thematic tensions in the creative work ofthree young indigenous filmmakers from Arizona in the UnitedStates: Deidra Peaches (Diné), Donovan Seschillie (Diné), and JakeHoyungowa (Hopi & Diné), known collectively as Paper RocketProductions.
Their collaborative productions afford viewers and scholars alike the opportunity to understand the artistic and political trade-offs and consequences of working at Native filmmaking. This, in turn, includes the implications of being identified by their tribal backgrounds, and of how the medium of film offers different means of exploring, representing, and creating identities that resist fossilised notions and expectations: some that pre-date intracultural filmic productions, and others that have grown up alongside developing trends - alluded to above - within the first four decades since Navajo-centered and directed films have existed. I see my reflections as a way to bring attention to their work, the beauty and technical skill exhibited in it, but also as a reflection on the contemporary process and challenges of making films outside of the commercial industry and within the support network of indigenous filmmaking and producing, including grassroots organisations such as Outta YourBackpack Media (OYBM), based in Flagstaff, Arizona, andLonghouse Media, based in Seattle, Washington.
