Deidra Peaches is a Diné filmmaker whose films have been shown at festivals around the world, including a short film at the Sundance Film Festival. In this episode of the Behind the Scenery Podcast, Deidra talks about her work, her connection to the Grand Canyon, exploring her culture and identity through filmmaking, and the importance of elevating Native voices. Learn more at deidrapeaches.com

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Alli: Hello, this is Alli. For this episode of the Behind the Scenery Podcast, I had the opportunity to speak with Deidre Peaches, a Diné filmmaker. If you'd like to just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Deidra: Yeah. (Introduction in Diné) And that's me introducing myself as a Diné asdzáá from Flagstaff, Arizona. And a little bit about myself, I am a full-time filmmaker. I own my own production company called DLP Productions that's owned and operated in Flagstaff, AZ. And a little bit about my filmmaking history is that I've been doing this line of work for a long time now. I started in high school creating short films with colleagues and friends, and that propelled and curiosity of creating films propelled to, like, different opportunities, creating narrative films, creating documentaries and, at the time, it was more or less, filmmaking was an outlet for me to keep myself occupied. Prior to that, I was really into sports. I was into basketball and everything, and I had dislocated my patella and so filmmaking was a way to like, not uh have too much stress on my body, but to do something that was creatively, just something I wanted to venture into. So that's something that I've been doing for well over 18 years now and I certainly enjoy doing that.

Alli: OK, great. So, you kind of answered my second question. But how exactly did you get into filmmaking? And was it something that you always were interested in, always wanted to do?

Deidra: Yeah, it's been something I've always in one aspect or another, it's something that I have found myself very curious about. I remember being younger and creating kind of like stop motion animation with like different sort of stick figures and creating a storyboard so inherently it was something that I found interesting. And it just grew into more things and then to this day, I'm still learning and I'm still wanting to to create more narratives and documentary film work.

Alli: Now, you’ve obviously done a lot of different films. In 2022, you directed the film Voices of the Grand Canyon. What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon and how has working on documentaries about the Grand Canyon shaped that connection? Deidra: Yeah. So, I'll, I'll start from my first memory of like really going to the Grand Canyon was a school field trip from Flagstaff. And going with a bunch of kids on the bus and going to the South Rim of the Canyon to the visitor center and just walking around like out there and just being immersed in just the vastness of the Canyon and the colors of the landscape. And it was something you don't really see every day. So being from a very ponderosa filled environment and then going to a Canyon, that was definitely something that stuck with me visually. And the other aspect of my connection to the Grand Canyon is that my third clan is Áshįįhi, which is salt people and in Diné culture we have stories that talk about the salt mines that are in the Canyon, that there's trails there that lead us, that a lot of our people have gone to and so directly like having that lineage is something that I've grown to learn more about through having these conversations and creating films and listening to other elders. And so, I'm, I'm really fortunate to have that opportunity to have those conversations and to learn about myself through documentary filmmaking.

Alli: Yeah. If you just want to talk a little bit about, more about your film, Voices of the Grand Canyon, what it was like creating that film.

Deidra: Yeah. So, um in 2022, voices of the Grand Canyon came out. And on that film, I had the opportunity to venture to different places along the Colorado Plateau, home to different Indigenous tribes on the plateau. And so one of the particular tribes that I remember going to was out in Zuni and so going to Zuni and hearing stories from elders out there. Talking about their connection to the Canyon and the stories that they have connected to the Canyon. And I guess in a lot of ways too this journey of the film really started too in 2015 when I had the opportunity to travel down the Grand Canyon from Lee's Ferry all the way down to, down to Phantom Ranch. And that was about like a week plus um river trip and so being there on a river rafting trip and being surrounded too by other elders who have voiced like their own connection to the Canyon was very powerful for me and in a lot of ways, I carried on that experience to the eventual creation of Voices of the Grand Canyon. Because, you know, for a lot of people that are fortunate enough to go down the river trip, there's springs that are down there. There's different wildlife, there's vegetation, there's rock formation. And just being in that space where you're able to see time in the sense of sediment was very powerful. And seeing like the most oldest rock layer being, like, a very black sort of like layer in the sheath of, of rock and everything and even too in our Diné creation stories we talk about world that's black and so kind of seeing like those correlations. Seeing that connection on a scale of that sort was definitely eye-opening for me. And so, from that experience of 2015 and then being fortunate enough to go and visit elders in their native homeland and conduct interviews was really great. So, in Zuni, interviewed Jim Enote and then um for Carletta yeah Carletta it was out in Hualapai. It was in a place called Diamond Creek right off the road from where Peach Springs is, and so being in those areas that meant so much to each individual was very enlightening, and I appreciated that experience with them. And so, yeah, being in that area, seeing the, hearing the roaring of the Canyon, or the water of the Colorado. And then also too just traveling down through the Canyon was really great. And so yeah, so being there too and another person was Coleen Kaska. She wanted to be interviewed at the top of the Canyon on the South Rim area. And so talking with her there and her sharing what it what the Canyon means and translates in her language and how it simply means the Grand Canyon simply means “where the train stops” and so kind of just having that direct source of having people who from all different backgrounds talk about the Canyon is very powerful, cause a lot of times people think of Native Americans as like a pan sort of perspective. Like there's only just one type or just lumping us all together. And so, in a lot of ways, it's not like that. Us down here we don't have a connection to maybe say, like Long House culture to, to totem poles that they do in other regions of the Pacific Northwest. And so, I think by celebrating and talking with elders who are still around and who have this very direct connection and lineage is really important. And so with Voices of the Grand Canyon, knowing that there's eons of connection and culture that's tied into the rocks, the fish and everything that's in the Canyon is important.

Alli: Now you've had your films and documentaries shown at film festivals around the world, including a short film at the Sundance Film Festival. What have been some significant moments in your filmmaking career?

Deidra: Yeah. With the career that’s spanned, I guess since 2007. So, well over 14/15 plus years, I've been fortunate to visit a lot of places and to meet a lot of people. And at the time with the Sundance Film Festival I was around 21 or 22 years old, and I was fortunate to be there with my colleagues Jake Hoyungowa, and Donovan Seschillie. In that particular role, Donovan was the director, I'm the producer, and Jake was the cinematographer, so having a network of creatives being so young and going to these spaces and um seeing what it is that this landscape encompasses as far as like marketing, publicity, and stuff. It was, it was very eye opening to see that filmmaking, uh Film Festival kind of circuit. And so now being older going to a couple of different film festivals, one that was memorable was in France, it was in Paris, it was the Indigenous Peoples Film Festival. That's the American translation. But that was a really cool experience uh with this filmmaker out there named Sophia, and so that was a really cool experience to go out there and to be immersed in a different culture. And so yeah, I feel very fortunate to be a part of those travels and to visit and to, to be surrounded by people and culture.

Alli: OK. What are some messages that you want to convey through your filmmaking?

Deidra: One of the messages I want to convey through my art and message of filmmaking is that we as Diné people, as people who are Native and find our home all around this region, that our voices are still strong and prevalent. And by exercising our integrity, our ethics, our culture, um we're having our ancestors live through us in that way. And so, by respecting them too, and that's congruent to the land, the water, the air and so forth.

Alli: So, a lot of your focus recently has been more on documentary filmmaking. What drew you towards creating documentaries and what are some of the projects that you've worked on?

Deidra: So, documentary filmmaking has been a way for me to connect and learn more about my culture. When I started out making films, I was really interested in learning more about the socio-economic disparities felt among Navajo people, Diné people. And so, it turned into asking questions and wanting to learn more about the water, wanting to learn more about the coal f...

Behind the Camera with Deidra Peaches