Chris Eyre

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Chris Eyre (b. 1968 in Portland, Oregon) an enrolled Cheyenne/Arapaho, is an award-winning and distinguished film director and film producer. His films focus the camera on all aspects of contemporary Native American life and tries to dispel stereotypes. His debut film, Smoke Signals, in 1998 won the coveted Sundance Film Festival Filmmaker's Trophy and the Audience Award.

Eyre's strengths as a filmmaker shows in his subsequent work. Skins is a gritty yet beautiful tale of two brothers on the Pine Ridge Reservation; one is a tribal cop and the other is a Vietnam vet battling alcohol and emotional problems. Eyre has also directed two episodes of the famed PBS series Mystery!, "Thief of Time" and "Skinwalkers" that star Adam Beach as Jim Chee and Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn. Both executive produced by Robert Redford and based on the best selling Tony Hillerman novels. "Skinwalkers" revolves around the mystery of skinwalkers or shape-shifters and a series of murders of medicine men. "A Thief of Time" is a who-dunnit that intertwines very competitive anthropologists, possible artifact thievery, a missing professor, and the legend of the Anasazi.

Eyre's Edge of America had the distinction of being the 2004 Sundance Film Festival "opening night" film. Edge of America is loosely based on the true story of a black English teacher who goes to the Three Nations Reservation to teach, but ends up coaching the very underachieving girls basketball team and takes them all the way to the state finals. In the process, he learns as much about their culture and race relations in America as much as they learn about winning and self-esteem.

Eyre's short film, A Thousand Roads, the "signature film" for the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, screens in Washington D.C. for an unlimited and exclusive engagement.

On January 29, 2006, Chris Eyre won a DGA for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for Edge of America becoming the first Native American to win that award.