Reel Stories

A raw filmmaking workshop
with Reel Indian Pictures

Kelly Byars and Ramona Emerson of Reel Indian Pictures

In this unique training, students will be learning how to use smart phone to record and bring oral history to life on film and through documentaries facilitated by filmmakers Ramona Emerson and Kelly Byars. Students will learn about research, pre-production, interview techniques, lighting, and editing for filming in the field.

To participate in this training you must be a New Mexico resident and at least 12 years of age.

There is space for 14 participants, so don’t wait - register now!

RAMONA EMERSON

Ramona Emerson is a Diné writer and filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. She received her degree in Media Arts in 1997 from the University of New Mexico and her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) in 2015 from the Institute of American Indian Arts. She has worked as a professional videographer, writer, and editor for over twenty years and is currently working on her 8th film project, Crossing the Line. She is an Emmy nominee, a Sundance Native Lab Fellow, a Time-Warner Storyteller Fellow, a Tribeca All-Access Grantee and a WGBH Producer Fellow. In 2020, Ramona was appointed to the Governor’s Council on Film and Media Industries for the State of New Mexico. Ramona just finished her first novel, Shutter the first of a trilogy, which was published with SOHO Books in 2022. Through her storytelling, Emerson looks at contemporary stories about her people and aims to question and redefine the expectations of Native cultural identity, highlighting stories that are not a part of mainstream media. She currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she and her husband/producer, Kelly Byars run their production company Reel Indian Pictures.

KELLY BYARS

Kelly Byars is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He moved to New Mexico in 1983, attending the Institute of American Indian Arts where he graduated in 1985 with a degree in Three-Dimensional Art. He has worked as a stone sculptor for over twenty-five years exhibiting in local and national shows. Byars attended the University of New Mexico where he received his B.A. in Media Arts in 2004 and his M.A. in Education (Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies) in 2010.

Kelly has produced several films as co-owner and producer of Reel Indian Pictures located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Most recently Kelly produced, The Mayors of Shiprock a documentary distributed on PBS and World Channel. Kelly continues work producing Crossing the Line, an examination of the violence toward Native people in border towns and the work of educators and activists that have worked for years to stop it.  

Production also continues on Through her Lens, a glimpse into the life of Maria Varela, a Chicana photographer and activist who worked with SNCC as an advocate for voting rights in Mississippi during the early 1960’s. Kelly is also in the process of directing Three Generations, a documentary that follows three generations of Taos Pueblo artists and their contributions to the larger art community. Most recently, Kelly became an ITVS Humanities Documentary Development fellow for the Three Generations project.

Kelly is also a 2021 Native Media Alliance Feature Filmmaker Fellow, completing his first feature length screenplay as part of the program.

While producing, Kelly has also worked as a contributing faculty member at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design and an adjunct professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts.