Smoke Signals Director Chris Eyre to Chair at Santa Fe U of Art & Design

Native News Network Staff in Entertainment. Discussion »

Chris Eyre - Cheyenne/Arapaho

SANTA FE - Award-winning director and producer, Chris Eyre, Cheyenne/Arapaho, has been named chairman of Santa Fe University of Art and Design's Moving Images Art Department. He will assume the position on February 1.

He is well-known among American Indians for directing "Smoke Signals," the 1998 film, which won a Sundance Audience Award and the Sundance Filmmakers Trophy. The film won the American Indian Film Festival's "Best Film" award for 1998.

Since then, Eyre has directed several films, which include: "Skins" - 2002; "Skinwalkers" - 2002; "Edge of America" - 2003. His work has won him an Emmy and a Peabody award.

Eyre's "A Thousand Road" followed the lives of four American Indians as they lived their everyday lives in contemporary American society. It was produced exclusively for the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC in April 2005.

In 2008 Eyre directed the first three episodes of "We Shall Remain" that was part of PBS's acclaimed series "American Experience."

This May, his latest film, "Hideaway," starring Josh Lucas and James Cromwell will be released.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Eyre currently lives in South Dakota.

posted January 19, 2011 7:50 am est