In addition to the wealth of amazing films, the Santa Fe Film Festival also provided great workshops and panel discussions, some of which were sponsored by the All Roads Film. Petroglyphs to Pixels provided a forum for filmmakers to discuss the evolution of traditional storytelling from murals and spoken word to today’s digital mediums. The discussion was moderated by All Roads manager of programming Lisa Burgueno. She was joined by Erika Fredrick, film producer and account 
executive for Kodak Entertainment Imaging, Chris Kientz, executive producer/co-author/co-director of the Raven Tales series, 2006 photography program awardees Larry McNeil and Sandra Sebastian Pedro and All Roads Advisory Board member Merata Mita, also an accomplished filmmaker, lecturer and essayist with over 25 years experience in the industry. While the advances of technology have allowed for an explosion of new content and distribution channels, it seems this has proven to be a barrier to indigenous filmmakers working to tell “traditional” stories. Funding sources and broadcasters seem hesitant to support films telling traditional stories using advanced technologies such as 3-D CGI. Even the definition of traditional was debated by the panel. According to Kientz, the labeling of Native Art as traditional indicates a dead culture, when in reality, today's Native Art is a reation to the present. McNeil added that anything that has relevance today is to avoid the word traditional. The more appropriate would be customary, because it is not relegated to the past. No matter what the label though, it all comes down to the story. According to Mita, a good story conveys knowledge thus affirming our existence in the future...
(Images courtesy of Lenny Williams, National Geographic Society)
