"A Thousand Roads"

"Though we journey down a thousand roads, all our roads lead home..."

National Museum of the American Indian

Introduces New Feature Film

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian presents the first screening of its new signature film “A Thousand Roads” for the public on Sunday, April 10. The film, which first premiered on Jan. 22 at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, will be shown six times a day in the Rasmuson Theater on the museum’s first floor. Admission is free.

The 43-minute film, directed by award-winning independent filmmaker Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho), is a fictional work that follows the lives of four contemporary Native Americans as they confront the crises that arise in a single day. With epic-sized settings that include the crest of the Andes, the ice floes of Alaska, the mesas of New Mexico and the concrete canyons of Manhattan, “A Thousand Roads” takes viewers on a memorable journey.

“This signature film, like the National Museum of the American Indian itself, needed to be a commemoration of living Native peoples and communities,” said W. Richard West Jr. (Southern Cheyenne), director of the museum and executive producer of the film. West envisioned a widescreen, emotionally engaging film for the museum’s new surround-sound theater.

“A Thousand Roads,” created by Garen and Native poet and performer Joy Harjo (Mvskoke/Creek), features an unconventional blend of Native characters: a Mohawk stockbroker, “hunting” in the steel and glass canyons of Manhattan; a young Inupiat girl, journeying to a new life in Barrow, Alaska; a Navajo gang member, tending sheep alone on the mesas of New Mexico; and a Quechuan healer, traveling across the Sacred Valley of the Incas in an attempt to save a sick child.

The film includes performances by Native actors Alex Rice, Geraldine Keams and Jeremiah Bitsui. Together with non-actors from each tribal region depicted in the film, they create vivid characters that embrace diversity and vitality of contemporary Native life. American Indian poet, activist and performer John Trudell narrates their journeys, drawing strength from their tribal past, to transcend the challenges of the day and embrace the promises that await them.

Director of photography Claudio Miranda was selected to capture the epic-sized landscapes seen in “A Thousand Roads” in wide-screen Super-35 mm. Australian composer and singer Lisa Gerrard (“Whale Rider”/“Gladiator”) joined Los Angeles-based composer Jeff Rona (“Traffic”/“Black Hawk Down”) to create an expansive, symphonic score that includes performances by Native drummers, vocalists Ulali and flutists R. Carlos Nakai and Douglas Spotted Eagle.

“A Thousand Roads” represents the first U.S. public exhibition of a motion picture that has been produced and displayed in accordance with the newly established guidelines of the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI), a consortium of seven major Hollywood studios that established
standards for the digital display of motion pictures.
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A Thousand Roads