CHRIS EYRE
Name: Chris Eyre
Born: 1968
Chris Eyre (b. 1968 in Portland, Oregon), an enrolled Cheyenne/Arapaho, is an
award-winning film director and producer. His films focus on all aspects of
contemporary Native American life, while dispelling the usual stereotypes. Eyre's
debut film, Smoke Signals (1998), won the coveted Sundance Film Festival
Filmmakers Trophy and the Audience Award.
Eyre's strengths as a filmmaker shows in his subsequent work. Skins is a gritty,
yet beautiful tale of two brothers on the Pine Ridge Reservation—one is a tribal
cop and the other is a Vietnam vet battling alcohol and emotional problems. Eyre
has also directed two episodes of the famed PBS series Mystery!; Thief of Time
and Skinwalkers starring Adam Beach as Jim Chee, and Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn.
Both were executive produced by Robert Redford and based on the best selling
Tony Hillerman novels. Skinwalkers revolves around the mystery of skinwalkers or
shape-shifters, and the murders of several medicine men. A Thief of Time is a
who-dunnit that intertwines very competitive anthropologists, possible artifact
thievery, a missing professor, and the legend of the Anasazi.
Eyre's Edge of America had the distinction of being the 2004 Sundance Film
Festival "opening night" film. Edge of America is loosely based on the true
story of a black English teacher who goes to the Three Nations Reservation to
teach, but ends up coaching the very underachieving girls basketball team and
takes them all the way to the state finals. In the process, he learns as much
about their culture and race relations in America as much as they learn about
winning and self-esteem. On January 29, 2006, Eyre won the DGA's award for
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Children's Programs for Edge of America,
becoming the first Native American to win the award.
Eyre's short film, A Thousand Roads, the "signature film" for the Smithsonian's
National Museum of the American Indian, opened in Washington D.C. April 10, 2005,
for an unlimited and exclusive engagement. It is a contemporary film, following
four American Indians in different locations, as they each confront everyday
events.
Chris Eyre was named a 2007 USA Rockefeller Foundation Fellow and awarded a $50,000
grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the
work of American artists.
Name: Chris Eyre
Born: 1968
Chris Eyre (b. 1968 in Portland, Oregon), an enrolled Cheyenne/Arapaho, is an
award-winning film director and producer. His films focus on all aspects of
contemporary Native American life, while dispelling the usual stereotypes. Eyre's
debut film, Smoke Signals (1998), won the coveted Sundance Film Festival
Filmmakers Trophy and the Audience Award.
Eyre's strengths as a filmmaker shows in his subsequent work. Skins is a gritty,
yet beautiful tale of two brothers on the Pine Ridge Reservation—one is a tribal
cop and the other is a Vietnam vet battling alcohol and emotional problems. Eyre
has also directed two episodes of the famed PBS series Mystery!; Thief of Time
and Skinwalkers starring Adam Beach as Jim Chee, and Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn.
Both were executive produced by Robert Redford and based on the best selling
Tony Hillerman novels. Skinwalkers revolves around the mystery of skinwalkers or
shape-shifters, and the murders of several medicine men. A Thief of Time is a
who-dunnit that intertwines very competitive anthropologists, possible artifact
thievery, a missing professor, and the legend of the Anasazi.
Eyre's Edge of America had the distinction of being the 2004 Sundance Film
Festival "opening night" film. Edge of America is loosely based on the true
story of a black English teacher who goes to the Three Nations Reservation to
teach, but ends up coaching the very underachieving girls basketball team and
takes them all the way to the state finals. In the process, he learns as much
about their culture and race relations in America as much as they learn about
winning and self-esteem. On January 29, 2006, Eyre won the DGA's award for
Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Children's Programs for Edge of America,
becoming the first Native American to win the award.
Eyre's short film, A Thousand Roads, the "signature film" for the Smithsonian's
National Museum of the American Indian, opened in Washington D.C. April 10, 2005,
for an unlimited and exclusive engagement. It is a contemporary film, following
four American Indians in different locations, as they each confront everyday
events.
Chris Eyre was named a 2007 USA Rockefeller Foundation Fellow and awarded a $50,000
grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the
work of American artists.