Two award winning independent filmmakers will visit OU Saturday to screen their latest films.

Greek actor/director Renos Haralambidis will screen "The Heart of the Beast" at 10 a.m., and American director Chris Eyre will show "A Thousand Roads" at 2 p.m. Both directors will introduce and discuss their respected films.

Eyre has received many accolades for past films "Smoke Signals" and "Skin." "A Thousand Roads," was recently completed for the Smithsonian American Indian Museum. Four stories are told in the film -- one follows a Mohawk stock broker in Manhattan, another is about a young Eskimo girl, followed by a story of a Navajo teenager. It ends with the tale of an Incan medicine man in Peru.

Eyre is known for his groundbreaking attempts to squash stereotypes of Native Americans. Some members of the OU community commented on the importance of Eyre's use of cinema as a positive cultural medium.

"His films give a more accurate depiction of Native American life. In most movies, Native Americans are either wise nobles or blood-thirsty savages, but we are just like everybody else. We are still trying to make an impact in America. Eyre captures that best," Kendrick Sweezy, community affairs chairman for the American Indian Student Association, said.

Other students found Eyre's topics in his new film interesting

"I think it is great that he (Eyre) is exposing audiences to cultures that they may not be familiar with. I am interested in seeing the Incan storyline because I studied in Peru last year," said Beth Schonwald, Latin American area studies senior.

Haralambidis has written, starred in and directed many films in Greece. "The Heart of the Beast" is a comic drama of three high school male friends coming together years after school to rob a bank in Athens to solve various problems.

The two filmmakers are featured together because of their collabortive effort "Get Your Kicks on Route 66," a movie shot in Oklahoma, with screenplay written by Andrew Horton, director of the film and video studies department.

Horton said he met Haralambidis during one of the film and video studies trips to Greece, and he met Eyre in New Zealand at a screening of "Smoke Signals." He said he is very excited to start the project with the two talents.

"It will be nice to bring two cultures together with romance and comedy, not war," Horton said.

Horton said he believes the two directors also have a lot to offer OU students.

"We are very pleased to be able in one day to celebrate some of the best independent filmmaking done in Greece and in the United States," Horton said.

Both screenings are free and open to the public.
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