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How Did the Tesuque Pueblo Start a Successful Movie and TV Studio?

The Tesuque Pueblo turned their old casino into Camel Rock Studios.

Hollywood studios have been an exclusive bunch. You have to have big money to buy in—or you need to be a really rich outsider to break in. And even then, there’s no guarantee. So how did one Indigenous tribe make such a splash making their own studio?

The Tesuque Pueblo are located just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. They had an old casino and were not sure what to do with it. They saw how movies and TV shows were spending a ton of cash in New Mexico—and sometimes these productions would feature portrayals of Indigenous peoples that were stereotyped and antiquated.

So how could they become active in fixing that problem and getting a slice of the pie?

They built a movie studio.

It is the first-ever Indigenous-owned production studio and location set in history. It’s called Camel Rock Studios.

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Author: Jason Hellerman
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.

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