For Native American Heritage Day, OKC theater to show new movie and offer free frybread

Brandy McDonnell, The Oklahoman
·2 min read
Two young Navajo cousins from different worlds bond during a summer on their grandmother's Arizona ranch in "Frybread Face and Me."
Two young Navajo cousins from different worlds bond during a summer on their grandmother's Arizona ranch in "Frybread Face and Me."
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Oklahoma City's Rodeo Cinema will celebrate Native American Heritage Day with special opening-day festivities for the acclaimed new film "Frybread Face and Me."

Starting Nov. 24, the nonprofit OKC theater will show Native American writer-director Billy Luther's narrative feature film debut for two weeks at its historic Film Row screening room, 701 W Sheridan Ave. 

To mark Native American Heritage Day, which is the day after Thanksgiving, Rodeo Cinema will have a special opening screening for the coming-of-age drama at 7 p.m. Nov. 24, with the first 100 attendees receiving free frybread.

Sunrise Tippeconnie, director of programming for OKC's deadcenter Film Festival, and Angela Startz, his co-host on the Reel Indigenous Podcast, will introduce the 7 p.m. showing.

The movie also will show at 9 p.m. Nov. 24 at Rodeo Cinema on Film Row.

For OKC tickets to the film, go to https://rodeocinema.org/events/frybreadfaceme.

What is the movie 'Frybread Face and Me' about?

Set in 1990, "Frybread Face and Me" follows two adolescent Navajo cousins from different worlds who bond as they spend the summer herding sheep on their grandmother's ranch in Arizona, where they learn more about their family's past and themselves.

The movie had its world premiere in March at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, followed by its international debut in September at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada.

"Frybread Face and Me" is written and directed by Luther, an independent filmmaker who is Navajo, Hopi and Laguna Pueblo. A writer on the hit AMC series "Dark Winds," the Arizona native is best known for his 2007 documentary "Miss Navajo," which tells the story of a young Navajo woman competing in the Miss Navajo beauty pageant.

The movie is produced by "Reservation Dogs" co-creator and Oscar winner Taika Waititi and distributed by Academy Award nominee Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Frybread Face and Me" also is executive produced by World of Wonder’s Fenton Bailey, "RuPaul’s Drag Race" producer Randy Barbato, Fit Via Vi’s Bill Way and Elliott Whitton, Charles D. King and MACRO. Chad Burris also is producer on the film.

On Nov. 24, "Frybread Face and Me" debuts on Netflix as well as in select U.S. theaters.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: On Native American Heritage Day, film 'Frybread Face and Me' plays OKC