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Katherine "K'iya" Wilson was born in Klamath Falls, Oregon to school teachers who lived and taught on the Chiloquin Indian Reservation. Her father was childhood friends with Director James Ivory. She attended the University of Oregon as an English Major, and soon became an actress for the burgeoning 16mm Poetic Cinema filmmakers that included members of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters. Concurrently, she was discovered by Director Mark Rydell for his film Cinderella Liberty (1973). Mark brought her to Hollywood and encouraged her to attend film school at the University of California. However, she wanted to continue as a filmmaker in Oregon, and has worked ever since to create a film industry in the Northwest tradition. It was in lobbying the Governor's office for the indigenous filmmaker that Katherine was chosen as the Governor's liaison to the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) wherein she became fast friends with Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas. She became visible as an advocate for films in Oregon, helping Producers and Writers with L.A. contacts and creating networking organizations on a grass-roots level, as well as providing a myriad of services for Hollywood Productions. Her first major film as location scout and location casting director was for the notorious National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). She provided these services for the next 20 years on many films, including Stand by Me (1986), but with her literary background she felt she could better serve her community by developing and creating screenplays that were made to film in the Northwest. She has worked with thirty-some writers doing this, and has recently completed five of her own, to great accolades for her work from Hollywood Writers, Directors, Producers, and Actors, some of them Academy Award level professionals. In 2007 she was honored for her career in Film with a weekend long party at the Pendleton Round-Up, with Filmmakers flying in from all over the country, including "Smoke Signals'" Director Chris Eyre. She was also honored with a Red Chief Joseph Blanket by Nez Perce Chief Sabe Redthunder and his wife Atwice Kamiakun. Since then, she has mentored young filmmakers and wrote and produced Animal House of Blues: How a Community Helped Create a Hollywood Blockbuster or Two (2012)_ with 10 graduating students from the University of Oregon's Cinematic Studies department. They won "Best Documentary by a Northwest Filmmaker" at the Eugene International Film Festival. When "Animal House" Alumni heard about it, some returned to Eugene to help her to re-edit, re-score and re-shoot it for a new edition: "Animal House of Blues". It aired on Oregon Public Broadcasting in May of 2018, and took OPB to #1 in the nation that night in prime time Neilson Ratings. In 2017 she completed her memoirs called "Echoes From the Set: 50 years of Filming On Location: Hollywood & Oregon's Cinematic Literary Voices" (2019). Then inspired by the students she mentored, she returned to the University of Oregon to finish her degree and complete her Film Certificate. While there, she wrote a sequel to her first book titled "Echoes from the Set (1967-1977) Shadows from the Underground: Cinema Under the Influence," which was released in August of 2021. She graduated as a Native with Sigma Tau Delta Honors, as well as winning their Scholarship, and a Graham Fellowship for Grad school. She was recently hired to mentor young Indigenous filmmakers at the University of Oregon Longhouse. In 2022 she was honored by the "Klamath Independent Film Festival" for her career, and in 2023 her Native students' films were chosen as finalists for 5 NW Film Festivals. She is currently creating a Made in Oregon Film Festival to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Cuckoo's Nest, the 40th of Stand By Me and the 50th of Animal House- which are 3 of the major films she worked on; and just completed creating a McKenzie Crossing Native Center for the Indigenous People of her Mother's homeland, to help it heal from the Holiday Farm Wildfire that burned down her home town of Blue River and much of the McKenzie River Corridor.
