Moderated by Maura Dhu Studi

Panelists: Chris Eyre & Zahn McClarnon

MAURA DHU STUDI has worked in the entertainment industry since her teens, as a performer, and in production. She has taught Film Acting & Scene Study Classes in Santa Fe since 2010. She is a two time Emmy winner for writing Silver Bullet Productions Award winning documentaries CANES OF POWER and HOWEVER WIDE THE SKY, for which she is an Associate Producer. 

WES STUDI

Wes Studi received an Academy Award in 2019, the first Oscar awarded to a Native American actor. Wes starred as Chief Yellowhawk in 2018’s “Hostiles”, with Christian Bale. In 2016 he gained attention as Kaetenay in Showtime’s “Penny Dreadful”. Wes is best known for his powerful portrayal of Magua in “The  Last Of The Mohicans”, and starring as Det. Joe Leaphorn in Tony Hillerman’s “Skinwalkers”, “Coyote Waits” and “Thief Of Time” on American Mystery! for PBS.  Among his numerous film credits are the title role in “Geronimo: An American Legend”, Eytukan, the Na’vi chieftain in “Avatar”, “Dances With Wolves”, “Powwow Highway”, “Street Fighter”, “Deep Rising”, “Heat”, “Undisputed”, “Mystery Men”, “The New World” and “The Only Good Indian”, which he also produced. Other television appearances include “We Shall Remain” for PBS, “The Red Road”, “Kings”, “The Mentalist”, HBO’s “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee”, Larry McMurtry’s “Commanche Moon” and “Streets of Laredo”, “Into The West”, “Superfire”, American Playhouse PBS “Trial Of Standing Bear”, “Longarm”, “Return To Plum Creek”, and TNT’s “The Broken Chain” and “Crazy Horse”. 

On stage, Wes has performed his one man show “Coyote Chews His Own Tale” which debuted at the West Coast Ensemble Theater in Hollywood, and went on to standing-room-only audiences in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Other theater credits are “Wolf In Camp” at The Armory For The Arts in Santa Fe, Stravinsky’s “A Soldier’s Tale” with son Daniel Studi and the Santa Fe Chamber Orchestra, “Black Elk Speaks”, “Royal Hunt Of The Sun”, and “Ten Little Indians” at the American Indian Theater Company (AITCO), “My Three Angels” and Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink The Water” at The Gaslight Theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and “The Pendleton Blanket” for The Mark Taper Lab in Los Angeles.  In 1999 Wes produced and directed the film “Bonnie Looksaway’s Iron Art Wagon”, which was shot in Santa Fe. 

Also a musician and songwriter, he plays bass with the band Firecat of Discord. Wes is an expert horse trainer, an accomplished sculptor of stone, and the author of two children’s books for the Cherokee Bilingual/Cross Cultural Education Center. Currently the Spokesman for the Indigenous Language Institute, he is fluent in both spoken and written Cherokee, his native language. He provided the Cherokee translations for the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “The Kentucky Cycle”. Wes was born in Nofire Hollow, and raised in Northeastern Oklahoma. He currently resides in Santa Fe, NM with his wife, singer-actress Maura Dhu Studi.

DELANNA STUDI

DeLanna Studi is a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is an actor/playwright whose TV credits include “Dreamkeeper”, “Edge of America”, “Shameless”, “General Hospital”, “Z Nation”, and the recent season of “Goliath”. Her theater credits include the First National Broadway Tour of “August: Osage County”, Off-Broadway’s “Gloria: A Life”. She retraced her family’s footsteps along the Trail of Tears with her father and created her play “And So We Walked” which has been touring for the last three years, and it was the first American play to be chosen for the Journées Théâtrales de Carthage in Tunisia. She is the Chair of SAG-AFTRA’s National Native Americans Committee and the Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry, the country’s only Equity theatre company devoted exclusively to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights.

CHRIS EYRE

Chris Eyre (Cheyenne/Arapaho) is an internationally recognized film and
television director and producer who has received many awards for his work including, a Peabody, an Emmy and a Sundance Audience Award. Eyre directorial-debut was the Miramax Classic Film “SMOKE SIGNALS (1998), which won Eyre the 1998 Sundance Filmmakers’ Trophy and 1998 Sundance Audience Award. In 2018, SMOKE SIGNALS (1998) was inducted by the Library of Congress to the National Film Registry for movies of historic and cultural significance to be preserved for all time.

Eyre’s television credits as a director include multiple episodes of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (NBC) and work on LAW AND ORDER – SVU (NBC), as well as directing the dramatic mini-series WE SHALL REMAIN (2009) for PBS.

Eyre began by attended the graduate film program at New York University and went on to the Sundance Institute’s Directors’ Lab being mentored by Robert Redford in 1995. Eyre’s film “EDGE OF AMERICA (2004)” was selected as the “Opening Night” film at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and garnered Eyre the highly prestigious, Outstanding Directorial Achievement from the Directors Guild of America (DGA) in 2005. Eyre has directed and/or produced over fifteen-feature films. Including Eyre’s SXSW award winner for Best Cinematography “HIDE AWAY (2012)” starring Josh Lucas and James Cromwell released theatrically in May 2012.

In 2015, Eyre executive produced the documentary feature film “THE SEVENTH FIRE (2015),” with fellow producers Terrence Malick and Natalie Portman. In 2016, THE SEVENTH FIRE was invited to screen at The White House in Washington, D.C. In 2017, Eyre was named annual-honorary Chair at the University of Hawaii in memory of the late Senator Daniel Inouye. Later 2017, Eyre’s company created and supervised the cultural team that advised language and Cheyenne Native American culture for the Christian Bale feature film “HOSTILES (2018)” directed by Scott Cooper.

Chris Eyre is currently developing a television series with fellow producers George RR Martin (Game of Thrones) and Robert Redford to be in production in 2020. Chris Eyre resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he also serves on the Governor’s Film and Television Advisory board. Chris Eyre is represented by Frank Wuliger and Davina Hefflin at the Gersh Agency, manager Andrew Hersh at Thrive Entertainment and attorney Eric Feig in Los Angeles.

Silver Bullet Productions will produce a Staged Reading of a play by one of Native America’s most prominent playwrights, Mary Kathryn Nagle.

with Wes Studi • DeLanna Studi • Robert Mesa • Kholan Studi

“They used our Sovereignty to establish the United States, and now they seek to destroy it.”

This moving Drama set in both the 1830s and today, tells the story behind the landmark 1832 case won by Cherokee Nation in the U.S. Supreme Court, Worcester v. Georgia, when the court declared the Cherokee Nation’s criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian American citizens on Cherokee Lands. The contemporary scenes of the play involve a Cherokee woman lawyer and her non-Indian boyfriend, who challenges the constitutionality of Native jurisdiction under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

This event will raise funds for Silver Bullet Productions’ education programs and documentary films, and enrich Santa Fe’s cultural community with an important piece of Native American theater.

Thank you sponsors for your generous support of the event

Private Benefit Concert

Special thanks to Vanessie of Santa Fe for hosting this event. Silver Bullet Productions is a 501(c)3 organization.
$70 is deductible on each ticket purchase.

Special Thanks to Chief Underwriting Sponsors

Thanks to

LEAD IN-KIND SPONSOR

Jay Grodin Foundation

Indigenous Language Institute

Maura Dhu and Wes Studi

A former reporter and news anchor serving with ABC News from 1967 to 2013, Sam Donaldson is best known as the network’s White House Correspondent (1977–89 and 1998–99.) Sam has covered every presidential election during that time beginning in 1964.