Lou Diamond Phillips to receive lifetime honour at Red Nation festival
Lou Diamond Phillips will receive the lifetime achievement honour at the 31st Red Nation International Film Festival in Los Angeles.
The festival will run Nov. 8-15, with Phillips to be presented during closing festivities at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. The closing night pairs the tribute with his latest screen work. It is a tight link between the award and the programme.
Phillips joins a line of past recipients that includes Zahn McClarnon, Edward James Olmos, Wes Studi, Graham Greene, John Trudell and Russell Means. The lifetime award is the festival's top career honour. It recognises sustained work on screen and a long association with Native and Indigenous storytelling.
The festival is presented each November by the Red Nation Celebration Institute, known as RNCI. The institute has supported Native and Indigenous storytellers since 1995. It describes the event as the world's largest Native and Indigenous film festival founded in the United States, and the first of its kind in Los Angeles, according to Red Nation Celebration Institute.
This year's other honours reach across stage, screen and music. Playwright and filmmaker Luis Valdez will receive the Marlon Brando Award for contributions to American theatre and cinema and for his commitment to Chicano stories. Chicano stories centre on Mexican-American life and culture. Filmmaker David Alvarado will receive an Edward R. Roybal Award for the documentary American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez, a non-fiction film about Valdez.
Director John Landis will receive the Joanelle Romero Global Impact Award for his work on Michael Jackson's "Black or White" music video. The video was known for its large global audience and its use of face-morphing effects. The Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians will receive an American Indian Heritage Month Award for leadership, cultural stewardship and contributions to Native communities.
On screen, the festival opens with Shannon Kring's documentary Nine Little Indians. The film was executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, Tony Robbins and others, meaning they helped back and guide the production. It closes with Vincent Grashaw's Gangland, which stars Phillips.
The scale of the edition is wide. The programme lists six narrative features, which are fictional films, alongside 28 documentaries. It also includes 38 documentary shorts, 14 narrative shorts, one animated feature film and nine animated shorts. Shorts are films made at a shorter length, often by emerging directors.
For audiences, the scheduling connects the honours to what plays on screen. Valdez is celebrated in the same edition as a documentary about his life and work. Phillips is honoured in the same edition that closes with his new feature. That gives Los Angeles crowds two ways to see the careers being recognised, in person and in the cinema seats.
