The Lab

Cinetelechy Lab aims to provide a virtual curriculum and mentorship opportunity that serves participating youth filmmakers in building a network with one another while learning valuable skills in storytelling, critical thinking, and media literacy.

The mentors will be able to have personalized one-on-one virtual meetings throughout the program to help uplift their voice and get their stories heard. The program will culminate with a live and virtual screening featuring films by the mentors along with the films created by that year's participants.

Cinetelechy

Cinetelechy is an ongoing film series started in 2019 by Atomic Culture and Blackhorse Lowe which takes place twice a year at the Admiral Twin Drive-in, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The series observes a distinct type of filmmaker, their motivation to re-examine and re-imagine narratives, the need for self-determination; having both a personal vision and the ability to actualize that vision from within. Each screening highlights a feature length film accompanied by film trailers, shorts, and video art highlighting indigenous, local, and emerging filmmakers.

Nanobah Becker

(Diné)

Nanobah Becker is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has screened at numerous international film festivals. She is the recipient of the National Video Resources Media Arts Fellowship and was selected for the Native Forum Filmmaker's Workshop at the Sundance Film Festival. Nanobah is a citizen of the Navajo Nation, was born and raised in Albuquerque, and currently calls Tovaangar (Los Angeles) home.

Zack Khalil

(Ojibway)

Zack Khalil is a filmmaker and artist from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. His work often explores an indigenous worldview and undermines traditional forms of historical authority through the excavation of alternative histories and the use of innovative documentary forms. He recently completed a B.A. at Bard College in the Film and Electronic Arts Department, and is a UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow and Gates Millennium Scholar.

Heperi Mita

(Māori Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāi Te Rangi)

Born into a movie making family, a career in the film industry was inescapable for director Heperi Mita – not that he didn’t try. His media career began in 2007, working in online journalism for the Pulitzer prize winning Las Vegas Sun newspaper. He returned to his home country of Āotearoa / New Zealand in 2011, following the death of his mother – indigenous film making pioneer Merata Mita.

It was here that he began his career as an archivist with Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision, the nation’s film archive. The combination of these experiences culminated in his directorial debut with documentary Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen which premiered at the 2018 New Zealand International film festival. Heperi was recently awarded the ‘2018 Pacific Islanders in Communication Trailblazer Award’ at the Hawaii International Film Festival.