40 Years, 40 Films, 40 Weeks: The Great American Footrace

This week’s Emmy-nominated Vision Maker Media Film, “The Great American Footrace,” tells the story of a small-town Cherokee boy who competes in one of history’s wildest publicity schemes — and takes home the gold.

199 runners left Los Angeles on March 4, 1928; only 55 crossed the finish line in New York City 84 days later, with 19-year-old Andy Payne in the lead. The film tells the full story of the 3,422-mile race down the entirety of the just-completed Route 66, and the boy who used it to change his life, save his farm, and launch his career.

Watch “The Great American Footrace” on the American Archive of Public Broadcasting website.

Check back here every Tuesday, or follow us at @amarchivepub on Twitter to keep up with featured streaming films over the 40 weeks of the celebration. You can find the complete schedule here.

About Vision Maker Media

Vision Maker Media is the premier source for quality American Indian and Alaska Native educational and home videos. All aspects of Vision Maker Media programs encourage the involvement of young people to learn more about careers in the media – to be the next generation of storytellers. Vision Maker Media envisions a world changed and healed by understanding Native stories and the public conversations they generate.

With funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Vision Maker Media’s Public Media Content Fund awards support to projects with a Native American theme and significant Native involvement that ultimately benefits the entire public media community. Vision Maker Media, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) empowers and engages Native People to tell stories. For more information, www.visionmakermedia.org

Each week for the next forty weeks, a different film featuring Native voices from Native producers will be available to stream free online, in celebration of Vision Maker Media’s 40 years supporting American Indian and Alaska Native film projects.

Follow Vision Maker Media on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Pinterest, or Google+.