2008 Spirit of Windrider Award Winner – Filmmaker and Producer, Heather Rae
Filmmaker and Producer, Heather Rae
Heather Rae has worked in a producing capacity on more than a dozen documentaries and half dozen features throughout her twenty years in the film industry. She produced Frozen River, which stars Melissa Leo, Michael O’keefe and Marc Boone Jr. Frozen River premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. Additionally she produced Ibid, starring Christian Campbell which will premiered the 2008 South By Southwest film festival and internationally at the Munich Film Festival.
Previously Rae produced and directed Trudell which premeired at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and played Tribeca, SilverDocs, Full Frame, Seattle and over 100 other festivals. Trudell was released theatrically by Balcony Releasing and played over 60 markets before airing on PBS’ Independent Lens and the Sundance Channel. Trudell won numerous awards including a Special Jury Prize from the Seattle Film festival and Best Documentary from the American Indian Film Festival.
Rae is producing and directing Family: The First Circle, a documentary about the foster care system; the project received the Sundance Documentary Grant and was selected fro Tribeca All Acess, both in 2008. Rae produced Out of the Blue: A Film about Life and Football for ESPN and Hart Sharp about the Boise State University Football team and their 2006 undefeated season leading up to the Fiesta Bowl victory.
For Six years Rae ran the Native Program at the Sundance Institute and was a programmer for the Sundance Film Festival. After leaving Sundance in 2001 she went on to work for Winter Films as Senior Vice President of Production. For the past seven years she has worked independently as a director and producer working on projects such as Sawtooth, starring Adam Beach, Gary Farmer and Udo Kier and Water Flowing Together about master ballet dancer Jock Soto, and ShiMasani. With director Blackhorse Lowe. She co-produced Backroads, directed by Shirley Cheechoo, which premiered at Sundance in 2000.
Prior to her years at Sundance, Rae produced on such documentary films as CBS’s 500 Nations, Turner Broadcasting’s The Native Americans, and PBS’ Storytellers of the Pacific. She produced the behind-the-scenes making of Smoke Signals for the Sundance Channel and was an Associate Producer on Silent Tears, directed by Cheechoo. Rae is an Adjunct Professor at Boise State University, sits on the board of Boise’s creative incubator, The Water Cooler and owns downtown arts collective The Muse Building. Rae is Cherokee and a mother of three. She and her family reside in Boise, Idaho.
Gentlemen,
Just another thanks for the opportunity to represent The Spirit of
Windrider. It was an amazing and beautiful experience to be a part of
and I will forever cherish that memory. I hope I can uphold the
responsibility in that powerful mission statement!
Please do extend my thanks to Dick Staub for the fabulous crown. I will
wear it every day with pride!!
Fondly, Heather
