Documentary Film: Coming to Light

Coming to Light tells the dramatic story of Edward S. Curtis, a complicated, passionate, self-educated pioneer and visionary artist who set out in 1900 to document traditional Native American life before it was gone. He created an astonishing body of work: thousands of wax recordings, a full length motion picture with Kwakiutl people, twenty volumes of text, and forty thousand photographs. The film explores the often controversial nature of Curtis’ romantic images, and the meaning they have for Native Americans today. In the documentary, Hopi, Navajo, Cupig, Blackfeet, Piegan, Crow, Suquamish, Kwakiutl and Gros Ventre people, descendants of Curtis’ photographic subjects, tell stories about the people in the pictures, and describe ways in which they are using the photographs to revive their own traditions in the modern world. The film will be introduced by director Anne Makepeace.

Please register for this program.