Thursday, January 31 - Center for Creative Photography - 6:00pm
The Hanson FilmTV Institute will present a Premiere Screening of Waaki (Sanctuary), the new documentary from noted Hopi photographer, video artist and filmmaker Victor Masayesva. A Q&A with Masayesva and co-producer Mariano Estrada Aguilar, a Tzeltal filmmaker and indigenous rights activist will follow the screening. The screening, presented in partnership with the UA School of Anthropology, will take place at 6:00pm on January 31 at the Center for Creative Photography. Admission is free.
Many indigenous people, including the Hopi in the U.S., and the Nahuatl, Maya and Otomi communities in Mexico, have a lifelong connection to corn. Songs, displays and ritual practices affirm this connection. This film – a collaboration between Victor Masayesva, Mariano Estrada Aguilar and Nahua filmmaker José Luis Matías Alonso – celebrates that connection and the dialogue possible from this experience. The partly animated documentary contains illustrations by Masayesva, Carl Onsae, Ronyk and Marcial Ayala. The artwork is inspired by the artists Hopiid and Michael Lacapa.
About the film’s theme, Victor Masayesva said “Interdependencies are a vital part of our known history and future existence on this green planet. The seen and unseen together. Recognizing these interdependencies, identifying and accepting our neighbors, this is our future.”
The Hanson FilmTV Institute provided funding for the film’s post-production. Hanson FilmTV Institute director Vicky Westover said “We are excited to present this latest work from renowned artist Victor Masayesva. The film is a fascinating blend of genres – part ethnographic, part documentary and part animation. As a whole, it aligns with the parts of our Institute’s mission concerned with producing and supporting films and film events that address societal issues and highlighting the work of Native American filmmakers. We are proud to place a focus on the work of this renowned artist whose career spans decades.”
Photographer and filmmaker Victor Masayesva began teaching high school students to document the oral histories of elders in Hotevilla, Arizona, in 1980. In the decades since, Masayesva has become internationally recognized for his expressive and experimental style. He received a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship in 1988 and ITVS funding for his film Imagining Indians in 1991, and has received funding from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Awards include a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Arizona and the American Film Institute’s Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists. Masayesva’s work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Northern Arizona and the Whitney Museum of Art. His acclaimed book Husk of Time: The Photographs of Victor Masayesva was published in 2006 by the University of Arizona press.
When: Thursday, January 31, 2019 – 6:00pm
The event is FREE.