Navajo Film Themselves Trailer

Sol Worth, John Adair and Richard Chalfen traveled to Pine Springs, Arizona in the summer of 1966, where they taught a group of Navajo students to use cameras in the production of documentary films. Their students were Mike Anderson, Al Clah, Susie Benally, Johnny Nelson, Mary Jane Tsosie and Maxine Tsosie and later Susie Benally’s mother, Alta Kahn. This film series is known as the “Navajo Film Themselves“, sometimes mistakenly called “Through Navajo Eyes“, which is the title of the book that Worth and Adair later wrote. The research team met with their students for eight hours a day, five days a week, during June and July of 1966. They gave their students basic instructions, while emphasizing that the students should make a film about whatever was important to them. After two months, the seven completed films were shared with the Pine Springs community. Published in this set are the original seven films and two supplementary films. These include • Intrepid Shadows directed by Al Clah