Dewi Marquis

(she/her)

2022 Cine Fe Fellow

Dewi (dae-wee) is a film director and editor based in Boulder, Colorado, on the traditional territory of 48 contemporary tribal nations including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute, and current home to members of approximately 100 tribal nations. She was born to a young Indonesian birth mother who named her Dewi, and descends from Orang Baduy, Banjar, Dayak, and Sunda to whom she attributes her Indigenous worldview, and an English birth father to whom she attributes her light-skinned privilege. She was adopted as an infant by white American parents who named her Amy and raised her in Kentucky on traditional territory of the Osage, Tsalaguwetiyi, Shawandasse Tula, and S'atsoyaha, with multiple journeys back to Southeast Asia for her father's work. In 2011, she made her first documentaries in Yosemite National Park, and two years later, left her 13-year career as a magazine editor to make films full time. Having spent years observing a conservation movement that's disproportionately white, she created the National Park Experience series, amplifying diverse cultural stories in docs that appeared in film festivals, national parks, and on PBS. She and her life+creative partner, Jason Houston, created their production company eight16 creative with the goal to center Indigenous voices, challenge dominant settler storytelling and colonial worldviews, and create art that inspires viewers to heal their relationships with the land and each other. Dewi’s short, ARA, UNTAMED, documents her racial awakening in the Summer of 2020, and her struggle to engage her then-7-year-old daughter as she transitions from blending to dissenting in their white suburban community. She and Jason are currently in production on an experimental body of work that explores Indigeneity lost, then reclaimed, as Dewi and other Indigenous adoptees break from their white communities and reconnect with ancestral stories, language, ceremony, and culture in an urgent call to address the climate crisis facing humanity. This project is the focus of her current fellowship at Cine Fe. Dewi has directed, cast, produced, filmed, and edited for a wide range of clients, including BBC, Exposure Labs, ProPublica, and The Discovery Channel.

Photo by Ryan Waneka / Horsetooth International Film Festival