PMA Associate Professor Jeffrey Palmer’s documentary film N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear has been included in TIME’s list of “22 Essential Works of Indigenous Cinema.” “The film profiles how [Momaday’s] childhood on several reservations in New Mexico shaped his writing,” Olivia B. Waxman writes.
In the piece from TIME, Palmer was also quoted about the 2023 film Fancy Dance. “Thousands of people just disappear off of the planet and nobody talks about them,” says Palmer. “Fancy Dance highlights that particular issue in a really, really smart way.”
N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear examines the enigmatic life and mind of National Medal of Arts-winner Navarro Scott Momaday, the Kiowa novelist, short-story writer, essayist and poet. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn led to the breakthrough of Native American literature into the mainstream. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and aired nationally on the PBS series, American Masters. In 2020, the film was nominated for an Emmy in support of American Masters' 33rd season, for Outstanding Documentary or Non-Fiction Series. The film also won the 2019 Ted Turner Award for the film that most encourages environmental stewardship.
