Arts Talk

By STEVE PERSALL and MARY ANN MARGER

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 18, 2001

Festival spotlights American Indian films

The third annual Native Visions, Native Voices festival of American Indian cinema will be Feb. 24-March 3 at Dendy-McNair Auditorium on the Eckerd College campus in St. Petersburg. All screenings are free and open to the public.

Director Chris Eyre will attend the festival for an opening-day screening of his film Smoke Signals, winner of two Sundance Film Festival awards in 1998. The 2 p.m. program includes Eyre's lecture, "From Dances With Wolves to Smoke Signals: Reinventing Indians on Screen."

The Doe Boy, a tale of a half-Cherokee, hemophiliac child, will make its Florida premiere at 7 p.m. Feb. 24. Other debut offerings include Usual and Accustomed Places, a documentary on infringed treaty rights, at 2 p.m. on Feb. 28.

Fourteen films, most of them documentaries and short subjects, will be shown. Other scheduled events include singer-activist Buffy Saint-Marie presenting the Cradleboard Project, a multimedia curriculum on American Indian history to be used in classrooms. Saint-Marie will appear March 3 from 9 a.m. until noon.

A symposium, "Images of Indians in Television and Films," will be conducted at 2 p.m. Feb. 27. Panelists include actors Michael Horse (Twin Peaks) and Gary Farmer (Pow Wow Highway, Smoke Signals).

A complete listing of events can be found by visiting http://www.eckerd.edu and clicking on the Native Visions, Native Voices icon. Or call (727) 864-8297. Eckerd College is at 4200 54th Ave. S, St. Petersburg.

Independent cinema festival

The first TamBay Film and Video Festival showcasing independent cinema will be March 8-11 at Tampa Theatre. At least 45 features, documentaries and short films will be screened, with awards presented in 13 categories.

Among the films already slated are The Girls' Room, starring Soleil Moon Frye (Punky Brewster); Odessa or Bust with Jason Alexander (Seinfeld); and To Kill a Lawyer, a thriller filmed in Tarpon Springs.

Tickets are available at Tampa Theatre box office and Ticketmaster outlets. VIP passes for access to 10 shows cost $40. Single-screening tickets are $5.50 for adults and $4.50 for students and seniors. A ticket to the closing night awards dinner is $40. For more information, visit the festival's Web site at http://www.tambayfilmfest.com or call (813) 964-9781.

Author to speak to Wagner Society

Few composers inspire as much passion as Wagner, whose flame is kept burning by 125 chapters of the Wagner Society around the world. The Pinellas-based Wagner Society of Florida, formed in 1999, gathers monthly to watch videos of his operas. Paul Heiss, who has written a book on Wagner, will speak at the next meeting at 2 p.m. March 3 at the Summit Executive Suite, 13575 58th St. N, Clearwater. Call (727) 531-5188.

Art beyond Tampa Bay

"Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s," Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., Feb. 18-May 6. More than 50 of the beloved artist's most famous oils and watercolors along with other significant works. The show travels to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 10-Sept. 9; and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Oct. 6-Jan. 6, 2002. (816) 561-4000, Web site http://www.nelson-atkins.org

Chuck Owen, University of Florida professor of jazz studies, premiered his composition Red Beans and Ricely Yours at last month's International Association of Jazz Educators Conference in New York, which attracted more than 8,000 musicians, educators, critics and industry professionals. Owen and his Florida-based big band Jazz Surge performed the composition, commissioned by IAJE in honor of the centennial anniversary of Louis Armstrong's birth, after a keynote speech by musician Pat Metheney.

- Times film critic Steve Persall and art critic Mary Ann Marger contributed to this report.

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