about the festival
Flagstaff Red Screen Film Festival: Celebrating Indigenous World Cinema is a new film festival showcasing, celebrating, and promoting the work of local and international Indigenous filmmakers to create a greater understanding of Indigenous cultures and their contemporary artistic expressions.
We are dedicated to:
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Building a community around Native American and Indigenous focused and/or produced film
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Presenting a broad representation of contemporary Indigenous cinema for a diverse audience
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Engaging and educating festival attendees via interaction with attending filmmakers
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Providing an opportunity for students to gain experience in cultural film programming and exhibition
A partnership between Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona, the festival’s presenting entities are the UA Hanson FilmTV Institute and the Cline Library at NAU. The festival’s Co-Directors are Shepherd Tsosie (Diné) and Vicky Westover.
Festival Team
Co-Directors: NAU Cline Library's Shepherd Tsosie (Diné) and UA Hanson FilmTV Institute's Vicky Westover
Assistant Director: Kerryn Negus, UA Hanson FilmTV Institute
Committee: David Church, David Gray, Susan Slonaker, Octaviana V. Trujillo (Yaqui)
Technical Director: Dan Brock, University of Arizona
Guest Narrative Programmer: Sydney Freeland (Navajo)
Post-screening discussant: Octaviana V. Trujillo (Yaqui)
Special Projects: Mathew Bogaert
Social Media Coordinator: Emily Herrera
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Shepherd Tsosie (Diné) holds advanced degrees in Library/Information Science and History from the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University. They have worked in the library and archival fields for more than a decade, with prior museum experience. Currently, Shepherd is an Associate Librarian at Northern Arizona University, where they have planned and screened films for the Native American and Indigenous Film Series (NAIFS) at Cline Library for eleven years. They have also served for several years as a juror for the Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival.
As Co-Director of the Flagstaff Red Screen Film Festival, Shepherd seeks to support Indigenous creative expression, and to place a spotlight on Native American/Indigenous film where the realities of living under ongoing colonial structures are depicted unapologetically and honestly.
Shepherd Tsosie
(They/them/Shepherd)
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A native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Vicky received training in non-profit arts management through the National Endowment for the Arts and has worked in the field for 30 years. She has directed numerous repertory seasons of cinema, international film festivals, competitions, and special programs with noted filmmakers. Vicky has been the Director of the Hanson FilmTV Institute at The University of Arizona since 2004. She is the founder and co-director of Tucson Cine Mexico, the first and longest-running film festival in the United States to showcase contemporary Mexican cinema. Vicky served as an adjunct faculty member in The UA School of Theatre, Film & Television, where she created and taught Film Programming and Exhibition.
Prior to moving to Tucson, Arizona, Vicky was the Executive Director of the Baltimore Film Forum where she produced numerous film festivals, including the Baltimore African American Film Festival and Baltimore Russian Film Festival. Vicky was the Founding Producer of Independent Eye (Maryland Public Television) and has produced short and feature-length films, including the documentary Apache 8, which was broadcast nationally. She was the Executive Producer for Hippie Family Values (2018), is a Producer for Almost an Island, and is producing and directing the documentary Final Vows.
Vicky has served on numerous non-profit boards, committees, and panels, including for the AFI in Washington, D.C. and the HBO/NALIP Documentary Awards. She has received awards for her work, including a Governor’s citation for promoting filmmaking in Maryland and a nomination for an Arizona Governor’s Arts Award.