Teenage Tulalip filmmaker wins award

Teenage Tulalip Director Wins Best Emerging Filmmaker award

By Richard Walker“History is Unwritten,” a short film by Tulalip filmmaker Aaron Jones, is striking in its beauty and elegant simplicity. It is narrated in Lushootseed, a Coast Salish language that was largely unwritten until the 1960s. The late Vi Hilbert, the Skagit educator who helped preserve the language, once called Lushootseed “the most beautiful language in the world.” The film was shot in a cedar forest, for centuries the source of materials for items that testify to the lifeways of the people: artwork, baskets, canoes, clothing, longhouses.

Jones himself composed the film’s score, a beautiful, unwritten piece he says he “winged” at the family piano. “It’s something I wanted to express, a mood I wanted to set for the film,” he says. He submitted “History is Unwritten” to the “History is ___” Film Competition hosted by the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. Still, he wasn’t prepared to hear his name called at the museum awards gala May 7. “History is Unwritten” earned Jones the Best Emerging Filmmaker award.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Native Documentaries and News.

Below:  "A still from the film 'History is Unwritten' by Tulalip filmmaker Aaron Jones."