Nanobah Becker
{{Short description|American filmmaker}}
{{Infobox artist
| nationality = Diné
| alma_mater = Brown University, B.A.; Columbia University, M.F.A.
| known_for = Filmmaking, scriptwriting, directing
| notable_works = The Sixth World, Conversion, Flat, I Lost My Shadow, Full
| style = Indigenous Futurisms
}}
Nanonah Becker is a Diné filmmaker from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who lives and works in Los Angeles, California (Tovaangar). Several of her short films have earned national awards, and her work has been collected and exhibited by major museums. Becker is particularly noted for her narrative focus on Indigenous futurism and work promoting Navajo language in film. Nanonah Becker is a citizen of the Navajo Nation.{{Cite web |date=11 Apr 2025 |title=Nanobah Becker |url=https://www.filmindependent.org/talent/nanobah-becker/ |url-status=live |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=Film Independent}}{{Cite web |last=Hays |first=Tim |date=1 Oct 2002 |title=Nanobah Becker: Notes from the Conversation with a Founder of Navajo Cinema |url=https://amerinda.org/newsletter/5-4/nanobah.htm |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=Talking Stick Arts Quarterly}}
Education
Becker earned a B.A. in anthropology from Brown University in 1997 and an M.F.A. in film (concentration in screenwriting and directing) from Columbia University in 2006.
Career
Nanonah Becker is best known as a filmmaker, both a screenwriter and director, of short films that explore Indigenous futurisms. Perhaps her best known short film is "The Sixth World," which aired as an episode of the PBS series, FutureStates, in 2012 (Season 3, Episode 6).{{Cite web |date=11 Apr 2025 |title=FutureStates: The Sixth World |url=https://www.pbs.org/video/futurestates-the-6th-world-a-future-friday-premiere/ |url-status=live |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=PBS}} "The Sixth World" draws upon Navajo origin stories to imagine their positive impact on future cultures.{{Cite journal |last=Medak-Saltzman |first=Danika |date=2017 |title=Coming to You from the Indigenous Future: Native Women, Speculative Film Shorts, and the Art of the Possible |url=https://doi.org/10.5250/studamerindilite.29.1.0139. |journal=Studies in American Indian Literatures |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=139–71}} Becker's work is called out for its turn toward a version of science fiction that uplifts Indigenous values as a promising avenue for cultural development in future societies.{{Cite journal |last=Estrada |first=Gabriel |date=2014 |title=Navajo Sci-Fi Film: Matriarchal Visual Sovereignty in Nanobah Becker’s ‘The 6th World.’ |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24488162. |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion |volume=82 |issue=2 |pages=521–30 |jstor=24488162}} Disney/Pixar also worked with her as the dialog director for the Navajo language version of the film Finding Nemo. Becker's work has been collected and exhibited by major museums, such as the Baltimore Museum of Art{{Cite web |date=11 Apr 2025 |title=Nanobah Becker |url=https://collection.artbma.org/people/31171/nanobah-becker |url-status=live |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=Baltimore Museum of Art}} and National Gallery of Canada.{{Cite web |date=11 Apr 2025 |title=Nanobah Becker |url=https://www.juntosart.org/nanobah-baker |url-status=live |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=Juntos Art Association}} More recently, Becker's short, "Landback, Waterback," premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in 2022.{{Cite web |date=11 Apr 2025 |title=Indigenous Film Futures |url=https://therai.org.uk/events/indigenous-film-futures/ |url-status=live |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=Royal Anthropological Institute}}{{Cite web |date=11 Apr 2025 |title=Nanobah Becker |url=https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/b/ba-bn/nanobah-becker/ |url-status=live |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=Kennedy Center}}
Awards
Becker has received special recognition and awards for her films "Flat," "Conversion," and "The Sixth World." She was a 2005 Sundance Ford Fellow, and the 2007 Sundance Film Festival selected her film, "Conversion." Her screenplay, "Full," won her a Rockefeller Foundation/RENEW Fellowship in Independent Film in 2006.{{Cite web |date=11 Apr 2025 |title=Filmmakers |url=https://decolonizingnature.unm.edu/filmmakers/ |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=Decolonizing Nature: Resistance {{!}} Resilience {{!}} Revitalization }} The ImagineNATIVE Film and Video festival honored her with Best Music Video for “I Lost My Shadow” in 2011, and the International Cherokee Film Festival awarded Becker with Best Sci-Fi (Science Fiction Dramatic Short) for “The Sixth World” in 2012.{{Cite web |date=1 Jan 2008 |title=Nanobah Becker |url=https://www.tfiny.org/films/detail/full |url-status=live |access-date=11 Apr 2025 |website=Tribeca Film Institute}}
References
External links
- [https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1913551/ IMDB Bio]
- [https://vimeo.com/nanobah Vimeo Bio]
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Category:21st-century Native American women
Category:21st-century Native American artists
Category:People from Albuquerque, New Mexico