Native Voices at the University of Washington is a center where students, faculty, and independent producers create documentaries and media research that contributes to the understanding, strengthening, and support of Indigenous people and communities. Native Voices envisions filmmaking from a decolonized, community based, and global perspective. We offer students and producers the opportunity to explore documentary from an Indigenous perspective, and to create projects that speak to critical personal, social and political issues in their lives.
Documentaries produced in our center have won awards and been screened at Sundance, the American Indian Film Festival, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of Modern Art, and many other venues. Our films are used in Indigenous education throughout the world.
As many of you have heard, on February 4th we lost a dear friend, colleague, and a true fighter for indigenous rights social justice, Phil Lucas.
Phil Lucas worked in film and television for thirty years, and received the Taos Mountain Award for lifetime achievement from the Taos Talking Picture Festival in 1999. Among the subjects he has covered are health and well being in Native communities, Native rights, and Native arts. His film, Restoring the Sacred Circle, won the Best Public Service Award at the 2002 American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco. Lucas was a participant in the 1999 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab. He has taught filmmaking workshops for young Native people and taught media communications and technology at Bellevue Community College. A lifelong learner, Phil was a new Masters student in the Native Voices Program at the University of Washington, where he was bringing his tremendous heart and experience to work with the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute on video projects dealing with Native health.
Phil worked on over 107 films as a director, writer, producer, or editor. His work was the important documentation of the American Indian experience and ranges from the feature film, Broken Chain starring Pierce Brosnan, to numerous Public Television and independent documentaries. He won an Emmy for his work on Turner Broadcasting's highly acclaimed series, The Native Americans. His film on American Indian artist Alan Houser garnered awards at the Santa Fe and Taos Film Festivals as well as recognition at Sundance. His early and profound works, The Honor of All, Healing the Hurts, and A Voyage of Rediscovery had tremendous international impact, and influenced an entire generation of Native and non-Native filmmakers.
Phil was a pioneering voice in indigenous filmmaking, one of the first Native Americans to take control of the camera in an industry where Native voices are rarely heard. He will be terribly, terribly missed.
