Media Advisory

TO                         Features Editors and PSA Directors

SUBJECT                Native American Film Actress Irene Bedard - "Native Americans in the Media"

LOCATION              Wood Center Ballroom, UAF campus.

DATE & TIME          Thursday, Nov. 13, 1 - 2:30 p.m. and Friday, Nov. 14, 3 - 4:30 p.m.

Alaskan-born Native American film actress Irene Bedard, the speaking voice of Walt Disney's 1995 animated "Pocahontas," will help UAF celebrate November as Native American Recognition Month. UAF's Rural Student Services is hosting a Native American Film Festival Nov. 10 - 14 featuring Bedard's films, which include the 1994 TNT special "Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee" and Disney's 1994 live-action adventure "Squanto: A Warrior's Tale." She received the American Film Festival's Best Actress Award for "Lakota Woman." She will be speaking at the Wood Center Ballroom Thursday, Nov. 13, 1 - 2:30 p.m. On Friday, Bedard will attend a panel discussion, "Native Americans in the Media" featuring National Native News' Nellie Moore, Blueberry Productions writer and producer Sharon McConnell, Society of Professional Journalists Alaska Chapter President Diana Campbell, KTVF-TV reporter Maude Blair and Tanana Chiefs Conference Reporting Coordinator and former Tundra Times editor Anna Pickett. All events are free and open to the public.

Bedard, the daughter of a French Canadian/Cree and an Inupiat Eskimo, was named one of the world's 50 most beautiful people in 1995 by "People" magazine. She is in Fairbanks to visit her brother, a UAF junior studying history.

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CONTACT: UAF Public Information Officer Debra Damron, 907-474-7122.

DPD/11-7-97/98-024ma