Director's 'Rose' is about to bloom

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

Natasha Kaye Johnson plays Turquoise Rose and Ethel Begaye plays her grandmother n the movie "Turquoise Rose," which premieres Friday in Window Rock. [Courtesy Photo]

GALLUP — For the past five years, Travis Hamilton has had one thought in his mind - getting a film called "Turquoise Rose" filmed and then hopefully open it on the Navajo Reservation to an enthusiastic audience.

He's done the first part, and on Friday, he will get his first chance to see how the movie plays to a Native American audience.

"I'm too close to it to know how an audience will react," he said. "We've done everything we can to make it a good film. It's either going to fly or crash."

At this point, the film has only been seen by him and some of the crew and actors, but on Friday and Saturday, hundreds of Navajos will get a chance to voice their opinion during two days of shows at the Navajo Nation Museum.

The film will be shown at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Friday. On Saturday, shows will begin at 9 a.m. and continue all day every two hours until 9 p.m. The admission cost is $8.

It's the story, Hamilton said, of Turquoise Rose, a young Navajo woman who grew up in Phoenix and knows very little about the Navajo Reservation, visiting it only a couple of times. That changes when her grandmother becomes ill and she has to go to the reservation and stay there to help her.

In an interview in Native Youth Magazine, Hamilton said he hopes that both Natives and non-Natives who see the film get something out of it.

"I want Natives to walk out of the show with a smile and feeling happy to be Native," he said. As for non-Natives, he hopes to conjure up feelings like "I never knew that" or "Wow, there's other beautiful land on the reservation besides Monument Valley."

The movie was filmed last year in a number of locations on the Navajo Reservation, including Window Rock and around the Toadlena Trading Post.

There are also a couple of scenes filmed in Gallup at the Gallup Indian Medical Center.

"The people at the Indian Health Service were wonderful," he said. The IHS allowed the film crew to take over an entire floor that wasn't being used and brought in the medical equipment needed to make the scene look authentic.

"If a major production had wanted to do what we did with IHS's help, it would have cost them a couple of hundred thousand dollars," Hamilton said.

This help was needed because, like many independent films, money was scarce.

When asked where he got the money to make the film, he quoted what someone had told him about independent film financing that it comes mainly from the three Fs friends, family and fools.

"That's what happened in this case," Hamilton said, "I used my credit cards but I had one investor who was a friend, another who was family and a third who was a fool."

The film cost a little under a $1 million and this was only possible because some of the crew and the actors took little or no pay and did it for the experience.

In order to get some publicity for the film, and to get a little more funding, Hamilton offered people a chance several months ago to buy an advanced ticket and he said he sold less than 100 tickets.

"These people will know how good a deal they got," he said, "because they will be able to go to the front of the line and get in before anyone else."

If there's one aspect of the film that Hamilton is sure about, it's that he found a cast that was not only energetic but were perfect for the parts they played in the film.

The lead actress is Natasha Kaye Johnson, who took a vacation from her job as a writer for the Gallup Independent to film her scenes.

"This was her first film, and I think the first time she has ever been on a set, and she did a wonderful job," Hamilton said.

Hamilton said he was especially impressed with her preparation and the fact that when she got on the set to film that first scene, she had the character of Turquoise Rose down pat to the point that when he sat down with her at time to talk about a scene, he realized that she had a better understanding of the character than he did.

Her love interest in the film is played by Deshava Apachee, a Navajo from Ganado, who has done some minor film work in the past and is familiar with movie making. "But this will be his first speaking role," Hamilton said.

He's especially happy with finding Ethel Begaye, who is from Shiprock.

He had been searching all over Phoenix and the reservation for someone who could play the role and came upon her by accident. She had brought her granddaughter down to audition for a part and when he saw her, he realized she had the "perfect look" for the role and later discovered she had no problems acting in front of a camera.

The movie is basically a drama, but Hamilton said there are some funny moments. "How can there not be when you have Vincent Craig and Ernie of Ernie and James fame in some scenes?" he said.

The plans are to now begin showing the film in and around the Navajo Reservation in the next couple of months. He said he plans to show it in Gallup, hopefully later this summer, and has been in negotiations about showing it at the El Morro or at one of the Allen Theaters.

After that, he plans to show it at the American Film Market, one of the two film marketing festivals that attract a lot of distributors. It's there that a lot of small independent films find a distributor who decides to get them a shot at nationwide distribution.