Navajo Filmmaker Ramona Emerson is Beautiful, Smart, and Won’t Take No For An Answer!
February 5th, 2012 | Published in Art, Community, Culture, Education | Comments (0)
Navajo filmmaker still shining at Sundance, By: Bernie Dotson, Gallup Independent, Native American Times.
Osiyo. Ramona Emerson a member of the Navajo Nation, has written directed, and co-produced a wonderful film entitled Opal. The film centers on the lives of Navajo children, specifically a young Navajo girl (Opal) who is tough, and has a mind of her own. When she is accosted by the town bully, Opal and her friend take steps to handle the situation. In addition to this wonderful film, Ramona and her husband Kelly Byars, a member of the Choctaw Nation, run their own company Reel Indian Pictures located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ramona received her B.A in Media Arts in 1997 from the University of New Mexico, one of the first two graduates of the program. Excerpt:
“Ramona Emerson swept into Park City, Utah, in 2010 as one of four writers and filmmakers selected to participate in the Sundance Film Festival’s Native Filmmakers Ford Foundation Fellowship Program…Opal is a short film about a young Navajo girl who takes on the town bully. When Opal is beat up by the bully, she and her friend Bunny take matters into their own hands. The importance of Opal’ goes beyond just getting my story on the screen,” Emerson explained. It is also a portrait of a tough little girl who won’t take no for an answer. It serves as a metaphor for all of the places that little girls aren’t allowed to go, the things they are forbidden to do. This is every little Navajo girl’s chance to power through diversity, to push by the people who are keeping you from what you want to do…Raised in Tohatchi and Santa Fe, where her mother attended art school, Emerson said she gravitates toward subjects she encountered as a youngster growing up around the Navajo Nation…Since everyone on the cast is under 12 years old, we had to work around schedules, during weekends and when we could get our lead actress (Magdalena Begay) into town from Flagstaff, Ariz…Emerson, 38, said she’s eager to enter Opal again at Sundance come 2013…”
Read the entire article to learn more about this wonderful, thought-provoking film. Click to see the film OPAL, and the other films Ramona Emerson and her husband have produced.
“My hope is to create a story that reflects a very true representation of what it’s like to grow up on the Navajo Nation, but more importantly, questions the roles of women and girls both on and off the reservation.”
~Ramona Emerson~(1974-)
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