Sheepdog flick herds in awards, buzz
By Cindy Yurth
Tséyi' Bureau
CHINLE, Sept. 26, 2011
(Courtesy photo)
Red Dog, a Navajo sheep dog, stars in "Run Red Walk," a film by Melissa Henry of Albuquerque which has won awards and will be shown at a festival in France.
Now that she's an adult with an Albuquerque-based film production business, the young Dine has brought her childhood vision to the big screen. And, apparently, you don't have to be Navajo to love this short film.
"Run Red Walk" was screened in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 18 as part of National Geographic's All Roads Film Festival, and will show (alongside three other Navajo short films, by the way) Oct. 4 at Festival Cine AlterNatif in Nantes, France.
"I think dogs are universal," opined Henry, who is Todich'ii'nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for Kinyaa'aanii (Towering House Clan). "Even though it's in Navajo, everyone who sees this film loves it."
That includes the critics, who voted it Best Short Subject in the Montreal First Peoples' Film Festival and, back home, conferred on it the New Mexico New Visions award.
People keep trying to read some deep Native American spirituality into "Run Red Walk," but Henry says it's really just "a fairy tale."
And no, the weird creatures Red Dog (who plays himself) encounters do not represent the Holy People.
"That shocks me when people ask about that," Henry said. "Grandma is a three-eyed bird. Green is ... some kind of a plant, I think. Purple ... I don't even know what Purple is."
Henry said she and her husband Alfredo Perez, the film's producer, got inspiration for the weird characters (played by puppets, most of which are voiced by Henry's mother) by looking at pictures on the Internet.
"Most of them are kind of Asian-influenced," she said.
There's not even much of a moral to this flight of fancy. Although if there were, it might be, "Although things can be very hectic and scary sometimes, there is a support system there," Henry said.
The 10-minute film centers around Red Dog, who really is a Navajo sheepdog. Henry had tried to make the film before using a trained blue heeler and a large production crew, and "it just didn't work," she sighed.
This time around, it's mostly just Red Dog, Henry and her mom and dad on the reservation out near Gallup. The film was so low-budget Henry was able to make it with a single seed grant from National Geographic.
Rita and Johnny Henry had some experience helping their daughter make her last film, "Horse You See," but still needed lots of direction. They seemed to enjoy it, however.
"They were laughing a lot, at least," she said.
And there are certain advantages to working with your folks.
"If I said, 'Mom, go out to that tree that looks like a hand,' she knew exactly where I meant," Henry said.
In the film (as in much of his real life), Red Dog is looking for his flock of sheep.
"He keeps running into people he knows," Henry explained. "He's an easily distracted type of dog. That's how he lost the sheep in the first place."
After getting a stern masani lecture from Grandma, he runs into some more sympathetic parental types, Green and Purple, who help him. Red Dog finds his sheep, and Henry found her girlhood curiosity satisfied.
Turns out sheepdogs really do lead mysterious lives.
"A lot of the filming time was me looking for Red Dog," Henry recalled. "All of a sudden I would see him lying under a tree or on top of a rock, looking way out in the distance, at something only he could see."
"Run Red Walk" is the second in what Henry calls her "Animal Trilogy." The first, "Horse You See," also garnered national acclaim. The third will be about Navajo churro sheep, although Henry hasn't decided yet whether it will star real ovines.
"When I was filming 'Run Red Walk' the most difficult part was filming the sheep," she said. "It's really hard to get them to do what you want. I'm thinking of going with animation, claymation or puppets for the next one."
To see a trailer of "Run Red Walk" go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2JlQWZgWas