Filmmaker dies in plane crash in Lancaster
The Associated Press
Published 5:30 am PST Friday, January 13, 2006
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gary Rhine, a Jewish filmmaker who focused on the struggles of American Indians, died in a single-engine plane crash in Lancaster. He was 54.
Rhine, who was also a flight instructor, was killed Monday when the Cirrus SR20 aircraft he and a student were flying crashed in a field near Gen. William J. Fox Airfield.
Rhine and the student, whose identity has not been released, died upon impact.
Rhine felt inspired to focus on the plight of American Indians after a trip to Israel, said his wife, Irene Romero.
"He really felt what he called the 'American holocaust' had not been documented at all," she said.
In his first film, "Wiping the Tears of Seven Generations," Rhine used the 100th anniversary of the Wounded Knee massacre in 1990 to tell the story of the Sioux Nation's loss.
"The Peyote Road" protested the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision that denied 1st Amendment protection to the sacramental use of peyote by American Indians during ceremonies.
In "The Red Road to Sobriety" in 1995, Rhine showed viewers the first Native American Alcoholics Anonymous convention in a story that showed "how alcohol was used as a tool to annihilate tribes," his wife said.
Rhine's documentaries consistently won awards at regional and international festivals, including the American Indian Festival.
After high school, Rhine spent a year at the University of Oregon before joining several hundred hippies who in 1970 founded a commune in Tennessee called The Farm. He lived there for 13 years.
While in Tennessee, Rhine met members of the Iroquois confederacy. Later, he lived on the St. Regis Mohawk reservation in New York.
Trained as a paramedic, Rhine called himself "the butler for midwives" as he taught American Indian communities about midwifery, his wife said.
A memorial service will be held Sunday in San Francisco. A service in Los Angeles is being planned.
Rhine is survived by his mother, wife, three daughters, three stepsons, and a brother and a sister.
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Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com
1 comment:
gary the Rhino was an honest, warmhearted person with whom I shared some common history and the occasional e-mail, though I don;t think we ever met in 3D life. His evenhanded appraisals of the strentghts and limitations of Farm life and culture were without peer, in my opinion, and I encourage anyone who is interested to look at the book VIoces from the Farm and especially pay attention to Gary Rhine's comments on what went right and what went askew. he was wonderful, and I know he and the Rhino's blog wilkl be much missed.
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