Forty Years, Forty Films, Forty Weeks: Racing the Rez

“If it’s not the best running movie ever made, it’s damn sure in the fight.” (Christopher Marlowe, author of Born To Run.)

This week’s Vision Maker Media film, “Racing the Rez,” focuses on the lives of five Navajo and Hopi teenagers from rival high schools as they compete for state championship glory in cross-country running. The camera follows the runners over the course of two seasons, combining interviews with vérité style shooting for a complex look at contemporary reservation life and a powerful portrait of transformation and hope.

Watch “Racing the Rez” 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.

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