Weaving Worlds

VisionMaker on the Road Home | Screening Application

In this compelling and intimate portrait of economic and cultural survival through art, Navajo filmmaker Bennie Klain takes viewers into the world of contemporary Navajo weavers and their struggles for self-sufficiency. More »

Program Length: 57 minutes
Production Staff: Producer: Leighton C. Peterson, Director: Bennie Klain (Navajo)
Production Company: Trickster Films
Format: DVD
Website for Weaving Worlds
Additional Resources Viewer Guide
Public Broadcast Release Date: November 2008

"This well-paced film has high production values and provides an insider's view that is well worth checking out."  --John Nesbit, Old School Film Reviews

In this compelling and intimate portrait of economic and cultural survival through art, Navajo filmmaker Bennie Klain takes viewers into the world of contemporary Navajo weavers and their struggles for self-sufficiency. Highlighting untold stories and colorful characters involved in the making and selling of Navajo rugs, Weaving Worlds explores the lives of Navajo artisans and their unique--and often controversial--relationship with Reservation traders. The film artfully relates the Navajo concepts of kinship and reciprocity with the human and cultural connections to sheep, wool, water and the land, showing how indigenous artisans strive for cultural vitality and environmental sustainability in the face of globalization by "reweaving the world."

Reviews:
Visual Anthropology Review

"In this profoundly thought-provoking documentary, Weaving Worlds, filmmaker Bennie Klain ushers us out of the stores and into the homes of the weavers, who take us on a fascinating journey into their minds, memories, hearts and deep cultural roots."  --Austin Film Society

"The film helps students to critically consider the processes and complexities of cultural continuity and change, and the confluence of spiritual, creative and economic motivations in art production."  --Heather A. Howard, Michigan State University; Anthropology Review

"If films are about observation, it occurs to me that Bennie Klain and his film associates have used their highest skills of observation to raise a hugely important discussion among Navajo people by producing this film."  --Beverly R. Singer, University of Mexico; American Indian Quarterly

 "Weaving Worlds possesses a critical point-of-view that, in the absence of voice-over narration, emerges through editing and cinematography."--Randolph Lewis; The Velvet Light Trap, Number 66, Fall 2010, pp. 50-61 (Article: The New Navajo Cinema: Cinema and Nation in the Indigenous Southwest)