Stereotypes past and present shown at festival

By Darren Brown, News9.com INsite team

OKC,OK -- Native American stereotypes past and present will be shown and discussed at this year's Film Preservation Festival at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

The Festival runs Thursday Nov. 6 through Sunday Nov. 9.

"This year has been kind of rich, in terms of some new, restored Native American themed films that have come out again after decades," said Brian Hearn, film curator at OKCMOA.

"If you think about cowboys and Indians movies y'know, the Indians are always the bad guys and the cowboys are the good guys--that's sort of the sterotype that we've had for decades," Hearn said.  "The more nuanced portrayals of Native American people often are overlooked, or under-appreciated." 

The four films being screened are "Redskin," made in 1929, "House Made of Dawn," from the N. Scott Momaday novel, "Exiles," made iin the 1950s, and "In the Land of the War Canoes," made in 1914.

The Oklahoma Museum of Art is partnering with the University of Central Oklahoma Film Studies, the American Indian Cultural Center and Museum, and the Film and Video Center of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian to present these films.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE 2008 FILM PRESERVATION FESTIVAL, CHECK OUT THE ASSOCIATED LINKS.