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Chris Eyre: Skins

Chris Eyre, Skins, 2002. Photo: courtesy First Look Pictures Releasing and Photofest.

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Fed up with alcoholism and a profiteering liquor store, Lakota tribal police officer Rudy Yellow Lodge takes the law into his own hands. While investigating a murder, Rudy encounters Iktomi, the Lakota trickster spirit, who spurns him on a quest to seek justice for himself, his family, and his culture. Graham Greene (Oneida) plays Mogie, Rudy’s humorous yet tragically alcoholic brother in this dramatic story of revenge, forgiveness, and brotherhood.

Chris Eyre’s Skins, adapted from the 1995 novel by Adrian C. Louis (Lovelock Paiute), was filmed on location at the Pine Ridge Reservation in the oppressive shadow of Mount Rushmore, a mountain sacred to the Sioux. 2002, US, 35mm, 87 minutes.

“I think Skins is the most commercial Indian movie ever made. It has Lakota language in it, Lakota religion, and Lakota culture, and that doesn’t mean culture from 1890. It’s not about romanticizing who we were. It’s about looking at who we are, or some of who we are, and reclaiming the good with the bad, in order to move forward. I’m not leaving it to the American public or the white liberal to say who we are.” —Chris Eyre, director

Presented in conjunction with Chris Eyre: Smoke Signals and Filmmaker in Conversation (March 9). Don’t miss Chris Eyre’s film Edge of America (March 2) also showing as part of INDIgenesis: GEN2.

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