Among the dozens of movies playing at Phoenix Film Festival, in progress at Harkins Scottsdale 101 through April 14, quite a few are Arizona themed and made. Two programs of “Arizona Shorts” play on the afternoon of Saturday, April 13, for instance.
Also playing this weekend is Joe Raffa’s moving feature documentary Bad Indian: Hiding in Antelope Canyon, a production of Tempe’s Point in Time Studios. The title is a play on the notorious 19th-century quote attributed to (though denied by) General Philip Sheridan, to the effect that “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” By that logic, the Tadytin-Tsinigine family, Diné folks who still reside around the exquisite formations of the title slot canyon system on Navajo land in far northern Arizona, would qualify as Bad Indians, as they are still very proudly and defiantly alive.
The family’s survival isn’t just physical but also cultural. Raffa’s film begins by summarizing the genocidal horrors visited upon Native people by the U.S. during westward expansion: the massacres, the Long Walk, the outrages of the Indian schools, etc.
But the family on which the film focuses managed to miss all of these; their resourceful ancestors – the name derives from a patriarch known as “Taadidiin” – hid the family in the canyons, then very remote, and kept their traditions alive. Antelope Canyon and its environs are now a very popular tourist attraction, still run by the Tadytin-Tsinigine clan.
The film’s format is talking heads of the family, which Raffa alternates with aerial shots of the region’s desolate beauty, all to the accompaniment of somber flute music. The effect is melancholy but not depressing; the vitality of the subjects gives the movie a life-affirming bite.
Bad Indian: Hiding in Antelope Canyon plays at 3:45 p.m. Friday, April 12, 11:25 a.m. Saturday, April 13 and 9:30 a.m. Sunday, April 14, as part of Phoenix Film Festival at Harkins Scottsdale 101. Go to phoenixfilmfestival.com for details.
