Film Event: Pride & Basketball, a film by Cinnamon Spear

This House of Books is collaborating with the Western Heritage Center to present a screening on Monday, November 13 of Pride and Basketball. The doors will open at 5:30 pm. The film, about 32 minutes long, will be followed with a conversation with filmmaker Cinnamon Spear.

November is Native American Heritage Month.

On the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, basketball is more than a game. It is a lifestyle. This film explores the interesting and serious dynamic between high school basketball and warriorism for the young men in the community of Lame Deer, Montana. Created by Cinnamon Spear, Pride & Basketball is the first film of its kind. Told from the perspective of current players, past greats, and community members, it is the only basketball documentary produced and directed by a filmmaker born to the reservation.

Cinnamon was raised in a large family on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. She is a graduate of Dartmouth and as such is, so far, the only graduate of Lame Deer High School to attend college in the Ivy League or to attend graduate school.

Cinnamon Spear is a leading Native American author. Her poetry, fiction, and narratives have been published in a number of anthologies. Her art provides a true representation of her people and personal history. She holds traditional values. She shares the importance of knowing your history, sustaining your culture, participating in ceremony, and giving back to your community in whatever ways you can.