This year, the 2025 Sundance Institute Native Lab was held at the Picuris Pueblo-owned Hotel Santa Fe in Santa Fe, where the Native Lab relocated in 2015. Indigenous program director Adam Piron (Kiowa/Mohawk) hosted four new Native Lab fellows and two artists in residence.
A local Pueblo elder, Barbara Gonzalez, the grandmother of recent Native Lab alum, Charine Pilar Gonzales (San Ildefonso Pueblo), gave the opening blessing. She spoke about being courageous in your art and finding your own voice. Every artist, she said, will have something different and special to offer the world, something that only they can provide.
In the years since I was a Native Lab fellow, the program’s focus has shifted from short films to more longform projects. After 2020, it pivoted to supporting feature films and episodic pilots, a move that coincided with a remarkable Indigenous TV explosion.
Every artist, she said, will have something different and special to offer the world, something that only they can provide.
“It wasn’t timed like this, but it just sorta ended up lining up like this,” Piron said. Shows like Rutherford Falls, Reservation Dogs and Dark Winds proved that a full-fledged Indigenous TV industry was already being created. The capacity for Indigenous episodic productions was there, and Sundance needed to support it with a new generation of Indigenous writers and producers.
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