‘Amasani’ a positive Diné narrative
SANTA FE
Courtesy photo
Stacy Howard with one of the actors, Erica Anna Green, during the filming of “Amasani.” Erica is actually Howard’s niece.
Stacy Howard has always liked films.
“When I was younger I enjoyed watching VHS,” said Howard, who grew up in Mexican Water, Arizona. “It took a while for films to get to the rez.”
She grew up in a small community with a single mother and three sisters. “For me movies brought out a whole different world and it was just inspirational,” Howard said. “Back then we didn’t have Dish. It was always VHS and I grew up watching Disney movies, too.” Howard had a common Navajo upbringing. “When we weren’t watching movies, we were herding sheep,” she said.
Her mother was also traditional in her teachings and belief. All of this was incorporated into her short film “Amasani” about a little girl who gets suspended from school and as punishment has to stay with her grandmother all day.
The film has been accepted to almost a dozen different film festivals including imagineNATIVE, the largest Indigenous film festival in the world, and most recently the Gallup Film Festival this past weekend.
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