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April 8, 2010
The Third Annual Greater New Mexico All Roads Film and Photo Project Awards

The Third Annual Greater New Mexico
All Roads Film and Photo Project Awards

Showcasing New Mexico High School Students’
Films and Photography

Santa Fe, NM – The Lensic is proud to host the third annual Greater New Mexico All Roads Film and Photo Project award event on Tuesday, April 27, at 10 a.m. Students from 17 New Mexico high schools will gather at The Lensic for the screening and awards event, which showcases the category winners of three minute films and photographs by local students.

The categories are: Best Narrative, Best Documentary, Best Comedy, and Best Language. The photo categories are: Best Composition, Best Use of Theme, and Best Overall. Awards will be presented to the winners.

Now in its third year, the Greater New Mexico All Roads Film and Photo Project provides an educational opportunity and venue to showcase film and photography by students for students. This year, the film and photo theme was “Personal Heritage and Cultural Storytelling.” Heritage is an individual or collective desire to preserve and pass on history to the next generation. Ways of expression can be found through family pictures, music, personal objects, religion, plants and animals. Collective heritage is seen through memories of elders, in buildings, landscapes and traditions.

In addition to building students’ skill sets in film and photography, the project also gives students ways to realize their own strengths and to face both adversity and, in some cases, tragedy.

Jemez Valley High School student Tamara Colaque began her film project, “Walking the Life Road,” with a focus on the voices in her community who have taught her about her culture. Her main subject was her friend, the musician Jimmy Shendo, a native of Jemez Pueblo who had enjoyed a significant career in music. However, as Shendo and Colaque were planning their scheduled round of interviews, Shendo died in a car accident while returning from Durango, CO.

Though she considered dropping the project, Colaque decided to continue the documentary in order to tell Shendo’s life story and honor his memory. “Walking the Life Road” is the title of Shendo’s latest and most popular song, which was nominated in two categories for the Native American Music Awards for best rock recording and debut group of the year in 2009.
“Though he has done so much for me and taught me a lot about my culture, this movie is only part of how I can give him thanks,” Colaque said. “I wanted this movie to honor him by sharing his music and his story.”

The National Geographic Society’s All Roads Film Project, Lensic Performing Arts Center and Santa Fe Photographic Workshops are project partners. Other partners include Bonanza Creek Ranch, the Indigenous Language Institute, Video Magic, Santa Fe Film Office and IATSE-Local 480.

If you wish to attend the event, please contact Connie Schaekel, Community Relations Manager at The Lensic at 505.988.7050 ext. 210.

All films and photographs submitted will be on exhibition Friday, April 30, 5:30 p.m. -7 p.m. and Saturday, May 1, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. at the Jean Cocteau, 418 Montezuma Avenue, Santa Fe. The exhibition is free and open to the public.