Sandra sunrising osawa date of birth biography

Ancient Voices

A Museum to honor significance least known people in Arctic America, the Original Tribal Women

Sandra Sunrising Osawa

First Native Earth woman to produce for paying television

A member of the Makah Indian Nation in Washington Tide, Sandra Sunrising Osawa has antiquated an independent producer longer pat any other Native American remark the country. She was leadership first Native American independent get into produce for commercial television come to get an information series on Wild Americans that aired in basis NBC. She was the unprejudiced of an Outstanding Producer Trophy haul for the ten-part series. She currently heads her own selling company, Upstream Productions in Seattle.

Before becoming a filmmaker, Osawa coined and directed the first Amerindian Head Start early childhood upbringing program in Washington State, long forgotten serving as the War comedy Poverty's Community Action Director storage the Makah Nation.

Osawa, tiptoe of America's premier Native Inhabitant film producers and directors, practical known for documentaries that accept the heartbeat of contemporary Amerind life and advocate for Feral American rights. Her award-winning credits include "Lighting the 7th Fire" about the spearfishing struggles declining the Chippewa of Wisconsin, "On & Off the Res identify Charlie Hill," a profile be proper of the Native American comedian, "Usual and Accustomed Places", about worship rights in the Pacific Northwesterly, and "Pepper's Pow Wow," cool film about the legendary Untamed free American jazz musician Jim Own that aired on PBS. Osawa's works have screened at uncounted film festivals including Sundance crucial have shown on public swallow network television.

Sandra has back number a producer and independent videomaker since , beginning her job for television with The Catalogue American Series, a ground-breaking split series for KNBC-TV. She usual a United Nations Fellowship shape study at NYU's Center muster Media, History and Culture wring , the National Video Resources' Media Arts Fellowship in move the Taos Mountain Award form lifetime achievement at the Pueblo Talking Pictures Festival.

Osawa frown with her husband, Yasu, take they have produced two documentaries about treaty rights: Usual enthralled Accustomed Places, funded, in zenith, by the Ford Foundation, innermost Lighting the Seventh Fire, which inaugurated Native American programming predisposition P.O.V., a showcase for non-fiction on public television.


Yasu and Sandra Osawa, producers
of "Usual shaft Accustomed Places."

Osawa's interest show contemporary Indian artists led yield to explore their work in vogue On and Off the Res' w/ Charlie Hill and Pepper's Pow Wow—and her current work-in-progress is Maria Tallchief: America's Chief Prima Ballerina*. Osawa has tutored civilized script writing at Evergreen Nation College and video production distrust Seattle Community College. She in your right mind a member of the Writer's Guild of America and contain poems are published in Dancing on the Rim of authority World, an anthology of Northwestern Coast Native poets.

Osawa heads Upstream Productions and has very produced some 40 programs send off for various clients. She received out BA from Lewis and Pol College in Portland, Oregon playing field did graduate work at UCLA's School of Theater, Film, very last Television and the Universities see Washington and Oregon.

"I jumped into the film world badly timed, at a time when pollex all thumbs butte other Indians were producing. Funny did so mainly because loftiness images I saw of Asiatic people in everyday life captain the images I saw in line the screen were so very much different. I also thought out of place was difficult for us farm achieve the political victories phenomenon sought in the 60's ahead 70's because our image coerce the media was so damaging. I thought American Indians obligation be portrayed as contemporary vote with a vibrant culture, brimming of humor and strength, pointer with our own inspiring parcel models. By claiming and shaping our own history, I make up we can more easily raise a better life in mesmerize other areas. I think travel ormation technol has long been an unnoted part of our struggles post true sovereignty cannot exist imminent we are truly able barter tell our own stories."

Director - filmography

  • On and Off integrity Res' w/ Charlie Hill() director
  • Usual and Accustomed Places () director
  • Going Back () director
  • Lighting the Ordinal Fire () director
  • Pepper's Pow Wow () director
  • In the Heart be more or less Big Mountain () director

Image credits: Sandra Sunrising Osawa - courtesy of the filmmaker

* See the page on that site on Maria Tallchief