Support For Native American Filmmaking Earn Award For Runningwater

Sundance Institute Director of Native American and Indigenous Programs, N. Bird Runningwater will be accepting the Lake Arrowhead Film Festival’s Outstanding Contribution to Native American Film award Sunday, May 20th at the Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa.

“The impact Runningwater has had on these communities cannot be overstated,” said Mary Dippell, Director of the Lake Arrowhead Film Festival. “By supporting these emerging filmmakers, he is giving a voice to groups who have been marginalized by mainstream media. We are honored to present this award in recognition of his work.”

The Lake Arrowhead Film Festival will feature a spotlight on Native American films this year as part of their schedule of events May 18th – 20th. This will include a screening of Yellow Rock, which recently won Best Feature Film at the Red Nation Film Festival, and performances by the Best Of Everything Band. Runningwater will be honored at the Filmmaker Awards Luncheon May 20th beginning at 12PM.

Runningwater, of the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico, guides the Sundance Institute’s mission to build a global indigenous film community. The program’s NativeLab Fellowship provides direct support to emerging Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Alaskan Native filmmakers working in the United States.

In addition to his work with the Sundance Institute, Runningwater has served as Executive Director of The Fund of the Four Directions, as Program Associate for the Ford Foundation’s Media, Arts and Culture Program, and as patron to the imagineNative Film+Media Arts Festival in Toronto. He has been honored by the University of Oklahoma’s Gaylord School of Journalism as a Distinguished Young Alumni in 2008, and is a board member for the George Foster Peabody Awards.

Currently based in Los Angeles, N. Bird Runningwater graduated from the University of Oklahoma with degrees in Journalism and Native American Studies. He received his Masters of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

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