The Mystery Of Now

In the short film, “The Mystery of Now,” artist and Apache Skateboards founder, Douglas Miles shares socio-political context around the history that lead to life on the San Carlos Apache reservation, and the personal history of how and why he started a skateboard brand and team of local youth leaders. His advice on cultivating resilience, creativity, and joy, provides guidance in a time that for many feels uncertain, polarizing and divisive in our living rooms and around our dinner tables. "It’s no mystery that the history of Native American people in this country has been overlooked, misrepresented and maligned to create a more heroic narrative for settlers to sell books, to sell land, and to sell movie tickets," Douglas shares. "In the middle of this cultural clash, stereotypes and battles for agency, one thing that has never ceased is Native creativity and the making of art. In our creativity we recreate ourselves, and in doing so we create and shape the world around us." In his words, "this film is visual meditation about life on the Apache nation via lived experience of Apache Skateboards. It’s a soulfully joyous glimpse into hard-edged lives of Native kids becoming artists, musicians, skaters, creatives, and leading in their community using art, music and skateboarding as a means of expression and power." "I felt if I could create art that kids could use it would change the way we not only looked at art but would change the way we looked at our community and ourselves," Douglas says. "This film captures the joyous, yet open-eyed worldview that living on the res develops in young people."