Two Spirits features:

Pauline Mitchell, Fred’s mother, was devoted to her youngest son and, following his death, was torn between the Navajo cultural injunction to never again speak of the dead and her deep desire to make the circumstances of his murder widely known in the hope that she might help save lives. She has emerged as a shy but effective spokesperson for gay and transgendered rights and the essential human right of free self-expression. She struggles to find seasonal work and to help raise her grandchildren who live nearby and attends to the needs of her elderly mother, who lives a traditional Navajo life in Monument Valley, and her father, who lives with her in Cortez.

Wesley K. Thomas is the Academic Dean of Humanities and Social/Behavioral Sciences at Diné College and is a widely recognized anthropologist who studies, among other subjects, cultural ideas about gender, and Navajo culture and language. He is part of the Education Policy Fellowship Program at Columbia University and is the co-author and co-editor of an anthology titled Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Much of the information in the film is also explored in his book Navajo Third Gender, to be published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2010.  He is the co-author and co-editor of an anthology titled Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. He has many years of experience working with the Native American gay and lesbian community and two-spirit gatherings, and he works as well on behalf of the families of Native Americans who have died as a result of racism and homophobia.

Richard (Anguksuar) LaFortune is a citizen of the Yupik tribe and the director of the media project 2SPR-Two Spirit Press Room, an effort to make Native voices heard more powerfully in all media. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Richard was part of a community of Native community members who began the international organizing efforts that resulted in the ongoing International Two Spirit Gatherings. His professional work in health and human services, arts and culture, and philanthropy and public policy are currently directed at reducing the suicide rate of Native youth, as well as the issue of Native American language revitalization.

Juantio Becenti, who grew up on the Navajo reservation in southeastern Utah, is a prolific composer of new music living in Cortez, Colorado. After beginning piano lessons at age twelve, he quickly realized that he wanted to do more with music than to simply play the works of others. He subsequently taught himself to compose, and by now his work has been performed in places as varied as the Grand Canyon, the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder, Colorado, the mountains of New Hampshire, and many places in between. His body of work continues to grow as he moves toward the goal of presenting music that is new, well-made, and socially relevant.

Cathy Renna is the principal partner at Renna Communications in Washington, DC, and she serves on the advisory board of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and Live Out Loud! Renna is recognized as a major force behind the success and growth of the Gayand Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)—where she worked for fourteen years. Following the beating death of Matthew Shepard in 1998, she helped activists in Laramie, Wyoming coordinate local, national, and international media and coverage of the tragedy and subsequent murder trials. She also was one of the key activists working with Fred Martinez's family, the media, and the police following Fred's murder in Cortez, Colorado.

John Peters-Campbell is an art-history professor and Cortez-area activist who immediately supported Pauline Mitchell following her son Fred's murder. John Worked tirelessly to help enure that the killer was brought to justice and that the horror of the crime was understood by people in the community and by the media. He and Fred's mother ultimately traveled together to anti-hate gatherings around the country, including the renowned Southern Comfort Conference, held in Atlanta each September. John remains a close friend of the surviving members of the Martinez family.

Author-activist Mark Thompson began his writing career at the national newsmagazine The Advocate, reporting on culture and politics in Europe and contributing to the publication over the next two decades as a feature writer, photographer, and senior editor. Mark edited the book Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian Movement, documenting the gay and lesbian struggle for civil rights. He is also known for his influential trilogy of books dealing with gay spirituality, Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning, Gay Soul: Finding the Heart of Gay Spirit, and Nature and, Gay Body: A Journey Through Shadow to Self. The three books form an autobiographical memoir combining elements of Jungian archetypes, gay history and mythology, and spirituality. Mark as contributed to numerous anthologies and collections and frequently lectures on gay history and culture. He provides a key interview in Two Spirits, and with his life partner, Episcopal priest and author Malcolm Boyd, provides important advice and support to the Fred Martinez Project.

Journalist Gail Binkly co-owns and edits the Four Corners Free Press in Cortez, Colorado. Her reportage and opinion pieces for the Cortez Journal following Fred's murder were widely heralded for their accuracy, insight, objectivity, and cultural sensitivity.

The film also features two-spirit people from across North America, including:

Travis Goldtooth, Navajo

L. Frank, Tongva / Ajachamem

John Jewitt, Oglala Lakota / Temne

John Parker, Comanche / Kiowa

Albert McLeod, Cree / Métis

Key Members of the Two Spirits Production Team:

Lydia Nibley of Riding The Tiger Productions is the director, co-producer and co-writer of Two Spirits, which is screening in film festivals around the world and will be broadcast nationally by PBS in the upcoming season of Independent Lens. She has produced award-winning projects in film, television, radio, and stage production and is the co-creator of the original television pilot Rise. Lydia is directing a new documentary titled In Her Honor.

Producer and co-writer Russell Martin’s bestselling books have been translated in many languages and the documentary Beethoven’s Hair, based on his book of the same name, has been screened at film festivals and broadcast throughout the world. It has received three Gemini Awards, and the Festival Director’s Prize at the International Television Film Festival.  Russell is the principal of co-producing partner Say Yes Quickly Productions. Beautiful Faces, a documentary that he will produce and direct, is in pre-production.

Henry Ansbacher is an executive producer of Two Spirits and the executive director of Just Media. His film Iron Ladies of Liberia has been broadcast around the world and his film They Killed Sister Dorothy aired on HBO and won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival and was short-listed for an Academy Award nomination in 2008. His film The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner was nominated for an Academy Award in 2009.

Editor Darrin Navarro edited Bug for famed director William Friedkin, and the film received the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. He produced and edited the documentary film The Painter’s Voice, also directed by William Friedkin, as well as the feature films Grace; Momma’s Man, an official selection at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival; Hate Crime, an official selection at the 2005 Palm Spring International Film Festival, and numerous other shorts, documentaries, and features.

David A. Armstrong , Two Spirits’ director of photography, began his career in documentary film and has since served as the principal cinematographer for more than a dozen feature films, including the films in the Saw horror series. He has also shot numerous television productions including Crime & Punishment and Lyric Cafe.

Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer Ron Eng’s credits include Coraline, Lakeview Terrace, Darfur Now, Bug, Vanilla Sky, Mulholland Drive, Independence Day, and Return to Neverland, among many other films.