>> you know, the funny thing is that myself and sherman alexie, the writer of smoke signals, you know, were dreaming about making this movie that would somehow catch fire, and next thing you know, it... it caught fire and it hit. and ten years later, it's still the movie that i'm best known for, and i think it's because, you know, when you have a "coming out" type of, you know, party or whatever it might be, that's what people, you know, really see. i mean, i've made five or six movies since then, and done television-- like law and order and friday night lights, but people still remember smoke signals. and i think the lasting effect of that movie was that it was another land marker in native cinema-- if there is such a thing. you know, in the early 1990's, when dances with wolves came out, it taught a whole generation of native actors that they wanted to be performers in the industry. and with smoke signals in 1998, what happened was-- at least what i'm seeing now-- is that there's a generation of native american men and women that are saying, "we are filmmakers, we are directors, we