I had asked then, how, we can possibly share, explain, all that we are doing, are becoming, have become, within a mere three-day window toward the end of October, or the beginning of November, of each year, and how can we take people with us on this journey. What will make them want to come?

Today begins that journey, that first step, and I will begin with a reflection penned by our board member, Rebecca Pelky, a faculty member at Clarkson University, who moderated, along with Justin Cree, a film we screened in our February presentation of “See Something that Means Something” at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts

“On Feb. 16,” Rebecca wrote, “Adirondack Film screened ‘Frybread Face and Me’ as part of their ‘See Something that Means Something’ series. Directed by Billy Luther (Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo), the film follows a young Navajo boy, Benny, played by Keir Tallman (Navajo), over a summer spent with family on the reservation.

“After the film, I had the opportunity to talk with the audience and Justin Cree (Wakathahin:ni (Wolf Clan) Akwesanronon (People of Akwesasne) Kanien’keha (Mohawk), director of the Akwesasne Cultural Center. One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation was how the film crossed cultural boundaries to connect people from diverse backgrounds.

“Although neither Justin nor I are Navajo, and our cultural traditions are much different from the Indigenous peoples of the southwest, we both spoke of how similar some of our childhood experiences were to those of Benny and his tough, outspoken cousin Dawn, played to perfection by Charley Hogan (T’odiichiinii (The Bitter Water Clan) and Akohni Dine (Acoma Pueblo). Throughout the film, Dawn tolerates the unfortunate nickname, ‘Frybread Face.’ While the desert setting may have been unfamiliar to us, we could easily recall spending summers exploring with various cousins, under the loose supervision of aunties, uncles, or grandparents. For me (Brothertown Nation of Wisconsin), most of that time was spent in the woods “out to camp” or on my uncle’s farm in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where we tossed chickens off of the bed of a trailer to try to make them fly, or tried to coax the horses fenced in the woods (which felt like a fairytale to my 11-year-old self).

“The experiences themselves are quite different from Benny’s and Dawn’s, and yet there’s a particular kind of nostalgia and identity formation attached to my memories of those times, which were stirred while watching this film. When I watched my older cousins shoot bats out of the eaves just to try out their new BB-guns, I learned something about myself and the difference between hunting and killing, and a set of traditional values that remain central to my personal morality.

“Like Benny, I also learned a lot about family — how we make them, or break them, how we forgive them, or don’t, how we choose to be together or let ourselves grow apart. This is the strength of a great film, that even when it tells a story vastly different from our own, it still connects to us on a human level, and, at least for the runtime of the film, allows us to see more of our similarities than our differences.”

In Rebecca’s telling, and I can’t improve on that, this maybe answers one of the questions above, the one on how to inform and entertain the families of our region. It maybe asks, if not answers, a question of how we spend time to raise questions, to again speak with our kids, and to speak of throwing chickens off of beds of trailers; it maybe precipitates moments and frees us to ask ourselves, questions about our choices of how we choose to be together or let ourselves grow apart, and may be, the reason why we chose the appellation, “See Something that Means Something” for the series.

We look forward to taking you with us on this journey.

We are screening “Humanity Stoked” with Michael Cohen, its producer, in attendance at 7 p.m. April 18 in the Northwood School auditorium. Admission is free. This is a skateboarding movie with messages that will stay with us, and hopefully with our kids, for a lifetime.

There will also be the Asbury Shorts Festival at 7 p.m. April 19 at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts with Doug LeClaire, the founder and co-producer of Asbury Shorts, a compilation of short films that will have you talking, and laughing, for weeks. Admission is $15.

You can learn more about us, about the films, and about the Lake Placid Film Festival at adirondackfilm.org. We’ll see you at the movies.

(Gary Smith is chairman of the Adirondack Film Board.)