Welynn animation accepted to world film festival

December 13, 2024

Daniel Welynn’s animation Karuk Fire Race has been accepted into several film festivals, including The World’s Independent Film Festival in San Francisco. He is an associate professor in the College of Arts & Sciences at Dakota State University.

Weylnn animated Karuk Fire Race, a story about a coyote stealing fire to get the animals warm during winter. This 6-minute 30-second animated film was done through 2D hand-drawn, frame-by-frame digital animation.  

“I have always been fond of coyote stories from Native Americans, particularly the trickster element of it,” Welynn said.

Those stories and the histories surrounding the cultures who tell them have repeatedly inspired Welynn as an artist. He partners with Native American musicians and tribes to create the work and help keep native stories and languages alive.

Welynn’s final undergraduate thesis was an animated short video of Coyote Steals Fire about the Native American lore of how man attained fire. His animation featured music by Native American artist John DeBoer, performing a flute song called “Cry for a Vision.”

In an effort to revisit the work, Welynn partnered over the past five years with the Karuk Tribe in California for Karuk Fire Race. He worked with Phil Albers, who speaks Karuk, to narrate the animation. Albers started by sharing the story with Welynn in Karuk and English.

Welynn began with character designs and mocking up different backgrounds based on images Albers shared with him. He would then share his designs with Albers for approval, which took time.

He hopes that the acceptance of his work into film festivals will help introduce Native history and stories to a broader audience and help keep the stories and languages alive.

“It’s important to preserve the stories and languages of these tribes,” Welynn said.