About this project

Hello everyone!

My name is Jason Asenap and I want to make this film.  This project was selected by the Sundance Institute for the 2011 Nativelab.  It was inspired by true life events so it's a very personal story to me.  I believe it to be a funny and inspirational film made from the perspective of a modern day Native American artist, dealing with the loss of confidence in his work and coming to a crossroads in his life. It's a universal story about making big decisions when the time is right and being bold and reaching for the sky.

You might say I've been working on this script for some time, having arrived at it after writing numerous other scripts that dealt with contemporary Native life.  I wrote this humorous, lighthearted script as a way to try something different and I really just want to see more humorous, intelligent stories that portray the real lives of contemporary Native people. So I went out and did just that.

I have a number of colleagues/friends who believe in this project and I've called upon them to graciously put their time and efforts into this project.  Filmmakers such as Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo), Steven Judd (Kiowa/Choctaw), Tvli Jacob (Choctaw) and Jonathan Sims (Acoma) are involved all involved in this project in some way, shape or form.  They bring a wealth of experience and expertise. I am honored and thankful for their willingness to contribute to this project. Also,I believe I've scored a great actor in Kelly Byars as well.

Being that the story is local, we're keeping it local by shooting in my neighborhood, EDo right here in downtown Albuquerque NM and on the University of New Mexico campus. We are utilizing local Native talent from right here in Albuquerque, where there is an abundance of it.

How are we going to do this?  With your help, we can feed the crew, rent the equipment we need (light kits, lenses, camera rigs, etc.), house those from out of town (we got a few who want to help from my home state of Oklahoma), pay for post production fees and acquire some good quality recordings from my very talented friend down in Austin TX, professional musician John Wesley Coleman who records solo work and with his great band, The Golden Boys. We want to get this film to the Sundance film festival, being that it's a Sundance lab selection, so we want to make the highest quality film possible.  We are doing our very best to keep costs low and yet even in doing so making a film is a very costly process.  So needless to say we are thankful for any assistance we get! 

I'm incredibly excited about taking this film from script to screen and telling what I think is a unique, contemporary story from one of the major urban areas of Indian country, right here in sunny Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'd really appreciate any support, whether it be financial and/or spreading the word far and wide by posting, re-posting, tweeting, and retweeting our info throughout the social media stratosphere, on Twitter and Facebook.

Thanks so much for your support!

Udah! and Mvto! (Thank you in both my languages,Comanche and Muskogee Creek!)