Phil Lucas

Phil Lucas (1942 – February 4, 2007) was an American filmmaker of mostly Native American themes. He acted, wrote, produced, directed or edited more than 100 films/documentaries or television programs starting as early as 1979 when he wrote/co-produced and co-directed Images of Indians for PBS - a five-part series exploring the problem of Indian stereotypes as portrayed and perpetuated by Hollywood Westerns.

Born in 1942 in Phoenix, Arizona, United States to the Choctaw Native American Nation, by his twenties Lucas was a musician in New York but giving up alcohol drove him to leave for Central America where he took up photography and work for advertising agencies. In the early- to mid-1960s Lucas became a member of the Bahá'í Faith and contributed songs such as Mount Your Steeds, O Heroes of God! and World Citizen, among other songs on an LP record re-released as a CD Fire & Snow. He also spoke at least one Bahá'í Conference (see links below). Lucas returned to the American West and took up filmmaking after surviving the 1972 earthquake in Managua, Nicaragua.

Acclaimed as the "foremost (Native American) film documentarian" by Hanay Geiogamah, a professor of theater and American Indian studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, Lucas won some 18 awards or nominations from 1980 to 2003.

As recently as 2003 Lucas won the CINE Eagle Award for Vis à Vis: Native Tongues.

Lucas worked on popular media as well as covering issues inside the Native American community. About 1979 he helped complete a set of documentaries covering Portrayal of Native Americans in film called "Images of Indians" with Robert Hagoplan. "Images of Indians" is a five-part series on the Indian stereotype portrayed in movies and questions what the effect of this Hollywood image has been on Indians' own self-image. In particular Lucas and Hagoplan made the first of the series - "The Great Movie Massacre" - about the myth of the "savage indian" vs Buffalo Bill and similar stories.

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