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Festival screens films through cultural lessons

The Heard Museum Film Festival line up

The Heard Museum Film Festival runs Oct. 12 – 15 and offers a great lineup of original and award-winning Native films.

All screenings will be held at Harkins Valley Art and Harkins Centerpoint 11 on Mill Avenue in Tempe, with select screenings and discussions at the Heard Museum Steele Auditorium in downtown Phoenix. Tickets: full festival pass, $80; day pass, $25; single screenings, $10. Tickets are on sale now at Harkins Theatre locations Valley-wide. Special rates are available to American Indians and members of the Heard Museum.

Among films to be screened:

The romantic comedy Expiration Date, featuring a cameo by 2006 Teen World Champion Hoop dancer Nakota LaRance (Hopi/Tewa/Assiniboine/Navajo).

Documentary filmmaker J. Carlos Peinado (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara), embarks on a journey of self-discovery and reconnection with his American Indian identity in Waterbuster, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.

Wrong love, kidnapping, sorcery, bungling mayhem and revenge gone awry mix it up in the surprising Ten Canoes, winner of the Special Jury Award at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Australian filmmaker Rolf de Heer focuses on Dayindi, who covets his older brother’s wife.

Crossing Arizona, Best Documentary Winner of the Arizona International Film Festival, examines the Mexico-Arizona border crisis through the eyes of those directly affected by it. Directed and produced by Joseph Matthew and Dan DeVivo, this film also features Tohono O’odham schoolteacher Mike Wilson.

Another border film, Pasos (Steps) visually portrays the gruesome brutality suffered by undocumented immigrants at the hands of violent coyotes. Directed by Jose Antonio Ocegueda, Pasos recently won Best Short at the Binational Film Festival in El Paso, Texas.

The Tribe: This film, narrated by Peter Coyote, sheds light on what it means to be an American Jew in the 21st century by tracing the history of the most successful doll on the planet -- Barbie.