Chris Eyre

Chris Eyre
Born	1969 (age 47–48) Portland, Oregon
Occupation	Film director, film producer

Chris Eyre (born 1968), an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, is an American film director and producer who as of 2012 is chairman of the film department at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

In 1998, Chris Eyre worked on two film projects. His first release was Things We Do (1998). His debut film, Smoke Signals (1998), won the Sundance Film Festival Filmmakers Trophy and the Audience Award. It also won "Best Film" honors at the 1998 American Indian Film Festival.

Eyre's second film, Skins, is the story of two brothers on the Pine Ridge Reservation—one is a tribal cop and the other is a Vietnam vet battling alcohol and emotional problems. Eyre has also directed two episodes of the famed PBS series Mystery!; A Thief of Time and Skinwalkers starring Adam Beach as Jim Chee, and Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn. Both were executive produced by Robert Redford and based on the best selling Tony Hillerman novels. Skinwalkers is a mystery involving skinwalkers or shape-shifters, and the murders of several medicine men. A Thief of Time is a who-dunnit that intertwines very competitive anthropologists, possible artifact thievery, a missing professor, and the legend of the Anasazi.

Eyre's Edge of America was the 2004 Sundance Film Festival "opening night" film. Edge of America is loosely based on the true story of a black English teacher who goes to the Three Nations Reservation to teach, but ends up coaching the very underachieving girls basketball team and takes them all the way to the state finals. In the process, he learns as much about their culture and race relations in America as they learn about winning and self-esteem. On January 29, 2006, Eyre won the Directors Guild of America's award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Children's Programs for Edge of America, becoming the first Native American to win the award.

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