Bird Runningwater belongs to the Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache Tribal Nations and grew up on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. He is a Producer and Executive Producer for film and television. He is an Executive Producer on Erica Tremblay’s debut feature film Fancy Dance starring Lily Gladstone which world-premiered in Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and is being distributed by Apple TV+. He produced the Free Leonard Peltier documentary, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Festival and is also an executive producer on the Norwegian/Danish Co-production Phantoms of the Sierra Madre, which world premiered at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen in March 2024. Prior to launching his own production company, Runningwater guided the Sundance Institute’s commitment to Indigenous Filmmakers for 20 years, nurturing new generations of filmmakers through the Institute’s Labs and Sundance Film Festival. He also served as the head of the Institute’s Equity and Belonging work, Institute-wide.
In 2001, Runningwater began leading the Sundance Institute’s investment in Native American and Indigenous filmmakers while building a global Indigenous film community. He nurtured a new generation of filmmakers whose films put Indigenous Cinema into the global marketplace, serving audiences worldwide. Under his tenure, 154 different Indigenous filmmakers were mentored and supported through Sundance Labs, Grants and Fellowships. More than 119 films written, directed and produced by Indigenous filmmakers were curated by Runningwater to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. In the 10 years prior to his departure, Sundance Institute welcomed into its programs artists representing more than 95 different Indigenous nations from around the world.
Highly sought after for his expertise and knowledge, Runningwater has led workshops and been featured on panels ranging from the Sundance Film Festival’s From Oral Tradition to the Screen: Indigenous Screenwriting to A Conversation with Merata Mita, who was the first Indigenous woman to solely write and direct a feature film, at the MessageSticks Film Festival held at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. He was a panelist at the Raising Voices Conference, hosted by the Hubert Bals Fund at the Rotterdam Film Festival in the Netherlands, exploring training programs that will stimulate the next generation of culturally distinctive and authentic filmmaking voices; And, he has been featured as the Opening Keynote Speaker at the Indigenous Film Conference hosted by the International Sámi Film Centre in Kautokeino, Norway.
Runningwater is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was recently appointed to serve on the Library of Congress’s National Film Preservation Board. He is a past member of the Board of Jurors for the George Foster Peabody Awards, and in Time Magazine’s 2019 Optimist Issue, Runningwater was listed among “12 Leaders Who Are Shaping the Next Generation of Artists”. He began his career in media as a Program Associate for the Media, Arts, and Culture Program at the Ford Foundation in New York, where he helped fund non-commercial radio, TV, and film work across the US and globally. He also built and managed the private philanthropy of one of the Rockefeller family members focused on revitalising Indigenous languages in North America. He is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma with degrees in Journalism and Native American Studies, and he received his Master of Public Affairs degree from the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, both of which have honoured him as a Distinguished Alumnus for his career thus far.
