Frist Films: Reframing the Narrative—Indigenous Filmmakers in Focus

Date and Time for this Past Event

Thursday, Sep 3, 2026 6:30pm - 8pm

Location

Details

In conjunction with An Indigenous Present, Indigenash presents an evening of film and conversation featuring three Nashville-based filmmakers whose work reflects distinct cultural experiences and creative perspectives from across Turtle Island.

Trenton Wheeler will screen Grassdancer, a poetic mini-documentary offering visual glimpses into the contemporary life of a mixed Indigenous musician and Northern Plains grass dancer.

Jeffrey Brant will share the first seven minutes of The Alley, a proof of concept he cocreated, directed, and edited for a television series passion project. He will explore how the project’s evolving pitch process has paralleled his own growing understanding of what it means to navigate the entertainment industry as a Native filmmaker.

Mexican writer-director Andrés Pérez-Duarte will screen Mexican Delight, a new dark comedy following Luz, a devout Catholic plagued by unsettling dreams who becomes desperate to stay awake at all costs.

Following the screenings, Wheeler, Brant, and Pérez-Duarte will join a moderated conversation exploring how culture, identity, and lived experience influence a filmmaker’s perspective without defining or limiting the stories they may tell. Together, they will discuss artistic freedom, creative responsibility, genre, craft, and the realities of carrying a story from its earliest vision to an audience. A Q&A session will follow.

This event is presented in partnership with IndigeNash.

Image: Dakota Mace. So’II (Stars II), 2022. Unique arrangement of 40 chemigrams; 38 x 51 in. Courtesy the artist. © Dakota Mace