MANKILLER {Centerpiece Film}

Valerie Red-Horse Mohl’s documentary tells the tale of a true American legend, Wilma Mankiller (1945-2010), a community organizer-turned-political leader who defied all odds to make a difference for her people. During a time when American Indians found themselves disenfranchised and undervalued by the United States at large, Wilma emerged as a champion of the Cherokee Nation and became its first female Principal Chief.

The film will be followed by a conversation with director Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, executive producer Gale Anne Hurd, and journalist and activist Gloria Steinem. Ann Hornaday from the Washington Post will moderate.

Filmmaker Bio:

Valerie Red-Horse is an investment banker, business owner, filmmaker and philanthropist of Cherokee heritage. She is a former CEO of two Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) broker/dealers, Native Nations Securities and Red-Horse Securities, believed to be the first Native American female-owned broker-dealers. She was born in 1959 in California as Valerie Rochelle Littlestar Red-Horse. She is also an actress and director, known for Naturally Native (1998), True Whispers (2002) and Telephone Warriors: The Story of the Choctaw Code Talkers (2006).

Attendee Bios: 

Moderator Ann Hornaday is the film critic at the Washington Post and was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in criticism.  She is the author of TALKING PICTURES: HOW TO WATCH MOVIES (Basic Books, June 2017).

Gale Anne Hurd is an American film producer. She is currently the recording secretary for the Producers Guild of America. She is also the founder of Valhalla Entertainment. She began her career as executive assistant to Roger Corman. She formed her own production company, Pacific Western Productions, in 1982, and went on to produce a number of box-office hits including The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), and The Abyss (1989). In 1998, she was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award. In 2003, she was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology at Telluride, Colorado. In 2010, the drama series she produced,The Walking Dead, began airing on AMC. She became a governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences in 2011, and in 2012 was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2013, Hurd was awarded the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award from the Athena Film Festival.

Gloria Steinem is a feminist, journalist, and social political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s. She founded the National Women’s Political Caucus. Steinem was a columnist for New York magazine, and a co-founder of Ms. magazine. In 1969, Steinem published an article, After Black Power, Women’s Liberation, which brought her to national fame as a feminist leader. In 2005, Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan co-founded the Women’s Media Center, an organization that works to make women visible and powerful in the media. Steinem currently travels internationally as an organizer and lecturer, and is a media spokeswoman on issues of equality.