Rise
An original pilot for a television series,
written by Lydia Nibley and Russell Martin

Rise is a show about a doctor in a small Arizona town who discovers that the experimental allergy drug she prescribes is a kind of legal ecstasy. The drug suddenly scrambles her patients’ lives—some for the better and others for the worse. It transforms their outlooks, libidos, and their relationships. And the doctor’s life and her family are turned upside down as well. The ensemble cast of white and Latino characters struggles with the fine line between living a larger life and utterly screwing it up, as each of them questions just what they are willing to risk in order to try to feel and be better.

Two Spirits
A documentary film,
Produced and directed by Lydia Nibley,
Currently in post-production and scheduled for release in 2008

The Fred Martinez Project and the documentary film Two Spirits have received a 2008 Monette-Horwitz Distinguished Achievement Award for outstanding activism, research, and scholarship to combat homophobia.

Fred Martinez was nadleeh—someone who possesses the gift of both masculine and feminine traits according to his traditional Navajo culture. On a warm summer evening in Cortez, Colorado, Fred hugged his mother, said he would return soon, and left the trailer house in which they lived to attend a rodeo carnival. Fred was sixteen years-old. He dressed as he usually did with a touch of mascara, wearing a small bra stuffed with socks beneath his sweatshirt, and carrying his favorite purse. He spent several hours with friends and then disappeared. His savagely beaten body was found five days later in a shallow canyon near his home.

Two Spirits is grounded in the events foreshadowing the murder, and the terrible reality of what happened on a night when one boy bludgeoned another with rocks, then bragged to friends that he had "bug-smashed a fag." The film asks the question posed by Fred’s mother, “Why are people killed for being who they are?

The film also explores the history of Native two-spirited people and the range of gender expression and sexual identity that has long been seen as a healthy part of many of the indigenous cultures of North America, and of Navajo culture in particular, which recognizes four genders. The first is the feminine woman. The second is the masculine man. The third is the male-bodied person who has a feminine essence—nadleeh. The fourth is the female-bodied person who has a masculine essence—dilbaa. When a child is born, elders seek to support the child in becoming fully who they are, and, in adolescence, the ceremony that marks entry into life as an adult is different for each gender. Quite wonderfully, a nadleeh or dilbaa person receives a combination of the masculine and feminine ceremonies.

In Navajo, nadleeh means “one who is transformed," and as the film traces the ramifications of a murder in the lives of those most affected, we see the possibility to transform bigotry into a respect for the balance of the masculine and feminine as a way of maintaining sacred order. When people are seen as being healthy and whole in any part of the gender and sexuality spectrum, perhaps we can return to the most traditional American values.

  More information at www.twospirits.org

Concerto
A book by Russell Martin,
And an adapted screenplay by Lydia Nibley and Russell Martin

Concerto tells the remarkable true story of cellist and conductor Pablo Casals’s dramatic personal journey for peace and justice in the mid-twentieth century, and his decision at the height of his extraordinary international career to stop performing or conducting, an act of political and moral protest that he maintained for fully thirteen years. Both book and film examine how one artist and humanitarian successfully found a way to act responsibly and forcefully in the face of a world seemingly gone mad—a subject that has particular relevance as each of us struggles with similar challenges today.

Out of Silence
A film based on the book by Russell Martin

Out of Silence is the true story of a boy trapped in his inability to communicate, struggling with autism to regain language. It is a drama that recounts a family's determination to help a son find his way back to words; a school's willingness to make room for a severely disabled child; a story too, about seemingly insurmountable problems and small but noble victories.

Film rights to the book have been optioned by Mike Jacobs Jr. Productions, and noted screenwriter Deena Goldstone is also attached to the project.