Two Spirits, recipient of the Monette-Horwitz Distinguished Achievement Award, was broadcast on the PBS series "Independent Lens" and won the 2010-2011 season's Audience Award. The documentary interweaves the tragic story of a mother's loss of her son with a revealing look at the largely unknown history of a time when the world wasn't simply divided into male and female and many Native American cultures held places of honor for people of integrated genders.
Fred Martinez was nádleehí, a male-bodied person with a feminine essence, a special gift according to his ancient Navajo culture. He was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at sixteen by a young man who bragged to friends that he had bug-smashed a fag.
Directed by Lydia Nibley and written and produced by Russell Martin, director of the award-winning 2012 documentary Beautiful Faces, Two Spirits explores the life and death of a boy who was also a girl and the essentially spiritual nature of gender and sexuality. The film makes the case that in the twenty-first century we need to return to traditional values, and that all of society is enriched by gender diversity.
Website: Two Spirits
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Two Spirits