EDGE OF AMERICA: SHIPROCK

When an African-American teacher reluctantly accepts a position on an Indian reservation in Utah, a clash of cultures turns into an unexpected discovery of common ground, courage, and hard-won confidence that could change all their lives.

With his life packed into the back of his car, Kenny Williams (Emmy nominee James McDaniel, NYPD Blue) has arrived in the Three Nations Reservation. The sandstone landscape is a foreign world compared to his home state of Texas—and as an African-American, Kenny is just as unknown to the Native Americans of the Three Nations where he has accepted a position as a high school English teacher. Then he befriends fellow educator, Annie Shorty (Golden Globe nominee Irene Bedard, Pocahontas), a single Ute mother who works miracles in the classroom, although she admits to an area in which she’s in desperate need of help. The Three Nations all-girl basketball team is in bad shape, and with the state finals coming up, they need all the help they can get. While preferring to change lives through books rather than basketballs, Kenny reluctantly agrees to stop in as their coach.

The girls show promise on the court—especially Carla, a girl at odds with her widowed father, and Baby, whose mother fears that sports will collide with tradition—but the team lacks spirit and confidence. What can Kenny give them? He remembers his own youth when he was bussed to an all-white school, overcame his fears and suspicions, and led the basketball team all the way to the state finals. With a little dedication and hard work, he can teach his girls the same self-respect they need to succeed. Kenny’s learning something, too—a Ute word, Tahwegga nah-nah mah. It means “unity, harmony, all of us together”—and now everyone at Three Nations is counting on that wisdom to give them the courage to go places they never dreamed possible.

Inspired by a true story, directed by acclaimed Native American filmmaker Chris Eyre (Smoke Signals), and costarring Dreamkeeper’s Delanna Studi and Eddie Spears, Edge of America is a movie that will resonate with anyone who ever needed the inspiration to become something they always wanted to be—themselves.