Funding The Rainbow Boy

Navajo filmmaker seeks funding

By Babette HerrmannTraditional Navajo ceremonies guide filmmaker Norman Patrick Brown to make decisions in his personal life and career.

Guided by spirit and vision, he wrote and directed “The Rainbow Boy.” Leland Grass stars as Eagle Catcher, a Navajo man who time travels through a cave from circa 1300 AD to present day. He arrives donning a knee-high loin cloth, spear and shield, and struggles to understand a world bustling with cars, strange clothing, liquor--and the environmental toll of the modern lifestyle.And:Private investors poured $30,000 into the nearly completed project. A large distribution company, he declined to name, offered funds to complete the film, but he turned down the offer, saying it was an issue of “control.”

Pond said distribution houses tend to take control of a film, from the research down to the editing. “You sign your rights away.”

Not the right move for a film close to Brown’s heart.

In lieu, he opened an online Kickstarter.com account to raise the $15,000 needed to shoot the final scenes and complete the sound score. Kickstarter enables the general public to solicit help on creative projects. By mid-April, donors had funneled more than $7,330 toward the project with a target deadline of May 11.Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Rainbow Boy Trailer and Jet's Film Financing Story.

The Rainbow Boy trailer

The Rainbow Boy Movie"An independent cinematic vision of ancient and modern history, language, and prophecy"

Norman Patrick Brown's first audience is his elders and Navajo people. The foundation of Norman's writing and directing is his ancient Navajo storytelling process, inherent in chants, ceremony, philosophy, and language. The Rainbow Boy story combines the ancient Navajo story telling process with the modern film industry formula, producing a unique and original film that is both Navajo specific and universal to all people.

Comment:  Apparently a pre-contact Navajo is magically transported to the present. As when cavemen came to the future in It's About Time and Iceman, a clash of cultures ensues. It sounds like a commercially viable idea.

Alas, I can't tell if the movie is any good from the trailer. But the Indian--presumably named Rainbow Boy--looks generic. And the Navajo didn't arrive in the Southwest until a couple centuries after AD 1300.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.