What becomes possible when filmmakers and film scholars have meaningful conversations about whose story they are telling, who gets to shape it, who it will serve and where it will live? What happens when Native people claim ownership over their story toward narrative sovereignty?
At the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, those questions are guiding a new collaboration with the Cherokee Nation that brings Indigenous storytelling practices into the classroom and lays the groundwork for a permanent program in Indigenous media.
Joseph Erb, a Cherokee Nation citizen, filmmaker and new TFT associate professor, has devoted much of his career to creating work in ᏣᎳᎩ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ, the Cherokee language. He previously taught at UC Santa Cruz, alongside Celine Parreñas Shimizu, now dean of UCLA TFT and formerly dean of UC Santa Cruz’s arts division.
“A public school of theater, film and television exists to put the means of storytelling in the hands of communities whose stories have suffered distortion, scarcity and misrepresentations,” Shimizu said. “Our partnership with the Cherokee Nation carries that charge forward.”
The collaboration is part of Picture Start, Shimizu’s five-year initiative to expand short-form filmmaking at TFT. Proposed projects include animated films for young audiences, documentaries, filmmaking workshops and reciprocal visits between TFT students and students at Cherokee Film Studios in Oklahoma.
The projects would produce films for Cherokee audiences while giving TFT students experience working directly with Cherokee artists and language keepers.
